A Home For The Holidays
by persephonesfolly
Summary: Modern AU. His life ripped apart by betrayal, Sesshoumaru tries to build a new one for himself and his brother. When a dark haired vixen comes along, what's a bounty hunter to do?
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

"Run."

Sesshoumaru stood in front of his little brother with his fists raised, and his trademark cold glare on his face. Three boys, his age and older, stood facing him. It was always this way. Each new foster home, each new 'group care establishment', there was always the confrontation. The older residents picked on the newer ones to establish their pecking order, to find out who could be victimized.

"But Sessh!" Inuyasha whined. "What about you?"

"I said run." Sesshoumaru ordered harshly, harsh enough to make Inuyasha jump.

This time his brother obeyed, and took off around the building. At age seven, Inuyasha was too young to fight high schoolers. Protecting him was Sesshoumaru's job.

One of the older boys smiled wolfishly and took off after Inuyasha. Sesshoumaru pounced. Grabbing the boy by his shirt collar, he planted his foot in the ground and twisted. Using the kid's momentum, he swung him around, bashing him into the Hispanic kid who was rushing to attack Sesshoumaru from behind. Both assailants fell to the ground in a tangle of legs, arms, and curses.

The remaining kid, a stocky senior with blonde curly hair and the tank-like body of a linebacker, snarled. "That's it, pretty boy. You're going down."

Sesshoumaru merely narrowed his eyes and attacked. The fight was on. By the time Inuyasha got back dragging a harried administrator with him, the fight was nearly over. Even though Sesshoumaru now sported a bruised cheek and a limp where a lucky kick connected with his kneecap, he knew the drill. His eyes flicked to Inuyasha, who dropped the man's hand and came over to stand beside his brother.

"I tripped," he told the administrator.

"Uh huh." Responded the older man skeptically.

Swinging around, he stared at the three boys who'd attacked Sesshoumaru. The blonde one now had a split lip and was breathing hard. The other two cradled swollen hands. Sesshoumaru had learned that it was near impossible to keep punching with broken knuckles, so he'd stomped on their hands as they'd rolled around on the ground trying to disentangle themselves so they could get up and corner him. In the foster care system it was a dog eat dog world. You learned to fight if you wanted to survive, and with their cursed white blonde hair and slight builds, Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha looked like easy targets.

"I supposed you guys tripped too?" The administrator asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah," the blonde kid said, wiping the blood off his lip with the back of his hand. "We tripped." He glared at the administrator, daring him to make something of it.

Wrong tactic. Sesshoumaru saw the administrator bristle.

"Fine, then you're all turning in right after supper. No TV, no socializing. Now get to the infirmary."

Defeated in more ways than one, the blonde kid hitched his shoulder in a signal to his two cronies and lurched past the older man, cronies in tow. As he passed by he shot a look of rage at Sesshoumaru, causing Inuyasha to reach for his brother's hand.

The administrator spoke again. "That goes for the both of you, too."

"But that's not fair!" protested Inuyasha. "They started it, they…"

He trailed off as Sesshoumaru squeezed his hand warningly. Inuyasha always spoke before he thought. That impulsiveness caused problems in the past. Sometimes Sesshoumaru despaired that the brat would never learn to think of anything beyond the moment.

The older man stared hard at the pair. He hadn't wanted them. There were barely enough resources as it was. He'd had to order a new set of bunkbeds and cram them in at the end of the older boys' dorm. Technically Inuyasha should have gone into the younger boys' room, but the notation in their file warned not to separate them, and besides, the younger boys' dormitory was completely full.

"As you wish," said the taller boy, his eyes carefully devoid of any emotion.

Unlike that blonde ruffian, Blake, this kid knew how to act respectfully.

Sesshoumaru.

Weird name.

The younger one was Inuyasha, also weird. Evidently their mother liked Japanese names. The man knew from the file that she'd abandoned the boys when Sesshoumaru was ten and Inuyasha was two. There'd been some sort of adoption planned which fell through at the last minute when the adoptive couple was killed in a car wreck. The mother, an alcoholic, took off when she got the news, abandoning the boys and making any other adoption practically impossible since she wasn't around to sign any new adoption papers.

The man held their gazes a while longer to make his point. Sesshoumaru met his eyes calmly, as still as a statue, while the younger kid fidgeted and looked worried.

"Get inside," he told them finally.

He didn't envy them their lot. Blake was a bully, the type of kid who'd end up in jail if he didn't find a way to take all that anger and need to dominate and find a productive outlet for it. Encouraging him to try out for the football team may have meant one less pair of hands to help with the chores each afternoon, but frankly the place ran a lot smoother while he was gone. Making a mental note to keep an eye on the new kids, he followed them past the barn and into the main building. Maybe he'd see if Gelson, the old coot who owned the ranch next door, needed some weekend help. That Sesshoumaru kid might be skinny, but that lankiness of his must conceal some kind of strength if he'd managed to land a punch on Blake. Pleased with his plan to keep the two combatants separated, he ambled on to his office while the boys slipped into the empty dining hall.

Sesshoumaru sat down at a bench at one of the coral colored formica cafeteria tables, sitting with his back to the ugly bit of furniture. He supposed someone in the past thought the garish orange was a cheerful color. All it did was make the cream colored walls look dingy in comparison.

Inuyasha thumped down next to his brother and stared at the floor. Sesshoumaru let the silence drag on, the pain in his knee and face a dull and constant ache.

"Sessh…"

Sesshoumaru concealed a smile. Inuyasha never could stand the silent treatment. His little brother might be an idiot, but he was all Sesshoumaru had. It was his responsibility to teach him to survive.

"My name is Sesshoumaru," he corrected coldly. "Say it."

Inuyasha blushed scarlet, realizing he'd been calling his brother by the pet name he'd used when he was a toddler. He hadn't done that in months. Switching to the new group home must have brought up old insecurities. Sesshoumaru would have to toughen his baby brother up.

"Sesshoumaru," Inuyasha repeated grudgingly. He shot a look at his older brother from beneath his bangs. They were shaggy and unkempt as usual. Sesshoumaru resisted an urge to take out his comb.

"I know I wasn't supposed to go get an adult, but I was worried about you," he confided glumly.

This was where Sesshoumaru was supposed to melt, give Inuyasha a big brotherly hug, and thank him for his concern. In a different place, in a home that was a true home, that might have happened, but this was the real world.

"Do you know why you don't go to the adults?"

It was a rhetorical question. Sesshoumaru had drummed the answer into his little brother years ago after their stint in the foster home where the foster dad was the one meting out the blows, not their fellow foster kids.

"Because you can't trust them?" Inuyasha whispered to his feet, eyes cast downward.

"And?" Sesshoumaru prompted.

"And if you can't solve the problem yourself then you're not much of a person to begin with?"

Sesshoumaru stretched his legs out in front of him and closed his eyes. His injured knee protested, but he ignored it. There was time enough later to get an icepack from the infirmary.

"The fight wasn't over," he explained tiredly. "Until I beat Blake, he'll just keep coming at me, thinking he can win. Because we were interrupted, this is just going to drag on longer."

"I'm sorry, Sesshoumaru."

Inuyasha was such a baby. His voice still trembled when he was upset. Sesshoumaru cracked an eye open and saw his brother's shoulders slump. Inuyasha was a child, an annoying, foolish lump of a kid, and he was Sesshoumaru's to protect. Not for the first time, Sesshoumaru cursed their mother who'd so callously left them to the system. He remembered clearly the day she'd left.

He was ten years old, only three years older than Inuyasha was now. At first he'd been so happy that mama was being nicer to them than usual. She'd been drinking less. She even took them out for ice cream and got Sesshoumaru his favorite flavor, chocolate toffee crunch ice cream. They were going to a lawyer's office to meet some nice people, mama said.

When they got to the office, after a long elevator ride, they'd sat in a posh waiting room, mama taking the magazines out of Inuyasha's baby fingers as he single-mindedly tried to tear them to shreds or put them in his mouth. At least she wasn't yelling at him. At ten, Sesshoumaru could've told her yelling didn't work with Inuyasha. It just made him cry.

A man came out to greet them, a grey haired lady by his side. Their faces were serious. Sesshoumaru looked at mama and saw that she'd noticed it too.

"What is it?" she'd asked. "Where are the Johnsons? I'm ready to sign the papers."

"There's been an accident," the man said. "I'm afraid they didn't make it."

"Accident?"

Mama acted like she didn't know what the word meant. Sesshoumaru wanted to tell her, but mama always said children shouldn't interrupt grown ups' conversations.

The lady came and sat by mama, and put a hand on her shoulder. Inuyasha took the opportunity to squirm down off her lap to be closer to the shiny magazines on the table in front of him.

"The Johnson's car was hit by a truck. They were killed instantly. We just got the phone call," she told mama sympathetically.

"What?" Mama stood up and glared around wildly. "Do you know how long it took me to get ready for this? To give my babies away? I've been sober for the past three days just so I wouldn't screw this up, and now you tell me it's for nothing?!?"

The lady stood up slowly. "We'll find you another couple. You know this is for the best," she said patiently. "We've been over this."

"No!" Mama said. "I'm done. I'm leaving. I can't deal with this anymore."

Terrified, Sesshoumaru wrapped his arms around his mother's waist.

"Mama? Don't leave us," he begged.

Mama didn't even look at him. She just grabbed his arms and thrust him away from her. She brushed past the protesting lady and ran out the office door.

That was the last Sesshoumaru saw of his mother. Now all the family he had left was sitting dejectedly on the bench next to him.

Sesshoumaru clenched his hands into fists and stared at the floor. He would not put his arms around his brother. He would not allow his brother to rely on human touch for comfort. Instead he would protect him by his actions, and teach him to be strong too so no one would ever hurt him the way their mom had hurt them. Until Inuyasha was strong enough to defend himself, Sesshoumaru would be there to protect him.

"Come," he said, standing and holding out his hand to his brother. "We're going to the infirmary."

Inuyasha grabbed his hand. "Do you think the nurse will be nice?" he asked, his mood changing from dejection to cheerfulness in the blink of an eye. "The nurse at our last school was nice. She was pretty too."

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Sesshoumaru led his brother out of the room. He still had Blake to deal with, but as long as he had Inuyasha, he had someone to fight for.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

"She's a beauty that one," Gelson said, tipping his cowboy hat up with one finger so it didn't lay so far down on his forehead. He stood next to Sesshoumaru at the corral by the barn.

The man's face was lined and leathery brown from a life spent in the sun. Sesshoumaru envied him that. In the three years he'd started working for Gelson after school he'd never developed the ability to tan gracefully. He was beginning to think he should buy stock in the sunscreen company whose lotion he so frequently had to purchase for himself, and for Inuyasha whenever the kid tagged along with him to the ranch.

He wrenched his thoughts away from his ten year old brother and gazed over the split rail fence at the mare Gelson pointed out.

"You should breed her," he said.

Gelson shot him a look. "Think so, do you?"

Sesshoumaru merely nodded.

"Why?"

"Her lines are good, and her hindquarters are strong. She'd make a good cowhorse, but breed her with Rory and she'll give you lots more good cowhorses."

Sesshoumaru had the impression Gelson was testing him, rather than doubting him. Rory, the stallion Gelson loved more than any other horse in his barn, was a big animal. His stamina was legendary. The mare's strength coupled with Rory's musculature would make for a good genetic mix. Three years ago Sesshoumaru wouldn't have known what to look for in a horse, but with Gelson's mentoring he'd learned everything there was to know about breeding and raising cattle and horses.

Taciturn by nature, Gelson's lessons tended to be short and pithy, and he never repeated himself. Since Sesshoumaru was much the same, they got along well. Gelson even trusted him with the ranch's accounting books when he'd learned of Sesshoumaru's talent for math. It wasn't something Sesshoumaru was proud of. He'd always been able to think analytically. It wasn't like it was something he'd had to work at. Not like branding, herding, or even riding. He still winced when he recalled those first few days on horseback.

Inuyasha, on the other hand, took to riding horses the way a duck took to water. It was probably because he was a daredevil by nature. Sesshoumaru was technically a better rider because he'd worked at getting it down perfectly, but Inuyasha was the one who could coax extra speed and fire from the beasts. He'd be a perfect jockey, if he'd stop growing.

Sesshoumaru stared at the mare and thought of bloodlines and breeding. He didn't know who his father was, or even if he and Inuyasha shared the same father. Their mother's steady string of boyfriends parading in and out of their old apartment made him think not. Sesshoumaru was now almost six feet tall. His meager frame had filled out some too, due to the demanding work on the ranch. Inuyasha and he had their mother's white-blonde hair, but Sesshoumaru's height must have come from his father since their mother hadn't been that tall. At least he didn't remember her being any taller than any of the other adults who ruled his world when he was a child.

"Reckon I'll breed her then," Gelson said, and walked away from the corral, a half smile playing along his lips.

Sesshoumaru went back to work mucking out the stalls. Gelson didn't have to look to know that his unpaid ranch hand was on his way to the stables. It wouldn't occur to Sesshoumaru to take a break unless it was the prescribed break time. He'd never seen a kid work so hard. It put his paid ranch hands to shame.

It shamed Gelson too, that he'd agreed to a 'mentoring program' with the group home next door. His ranch was on the outskirts of town because he needed open space for his cows. Years ago he'd sold some of his land to the county to build the home on because he'd needed the money.

Since taking on Sesshoumaru, he'd listened to the kid's ideas and came to realize he was a natural at the business end of ranching as well as the workaday part. What he didn't tell that tight-fisted twit at the group home was that after about a year he'd been squirreling money away in a bank account, money that represented what Sesshoumaru would have been paid as a ranch hand if the group home allowed it. When Sesshoumaru graduated from high school at age eighteen, Gelson intended that he'd get his justly earned wages.

It was a shame in a way. Sesshoumaru was born to run a ranch, not follow a ranch owner's orders. With that money, he'd be gone to make his own way in the world. Gelson wondered how the ranch would do without Sesshoumaru's help, and what Inuyasha would do without his big brother.

0-0-0

"I'm taking my brother with me."

It was a new administrator sitting at the front desk of the group home. A bespectacled woman this time, old, tired, and obviously at the end of her career and at the end of her rope.

"Sesshoumaru, you're only nineteen. You've only been away for one summer. Inuyasha is just twelve. He needs the stability of a home."

The woman wore a nametag that said 'Mrs. Madsen'. She looked earnest enough, but she lacked the old administrator's iron will. This was in the bag.

"As you pointed out, I'm nineteen. I'm a legal adult, I have a place of residence, and I will provide a home for my brother."

Sesshoumaru tossed his driver's license with his new address on it on top of the paperwork littering the woman's desk.

Tidiness was not her strong suit.

Reaching into the second hand leather briefcase he'd brought with him, he pulled out the documents he'd spent precious money on to have a lawyer write up for him.

"I've already petitioned the court, and they agreed to grant me temporary custody. I've spoken with social services, and they'll be conducting home visits to be sure I'm caring for Inuyasha properly. Is there anything else?"

Concealing his pounding heart and sweat slicked palms, Sesshoumaru raised his eyebrows in the best supercilious manner he could manage. He had to get his brother out of there. Blake and his lot graduated and left years ago, to be supplanted by other bullies. Kids moved in and out of the system all the time. If he didn't get Inuyasha out of there soon, who knew where the kid could end up?

Mrs. Madsen took the papers reluctantly and began reading them over. When she finished, she took her glasses off and set them quietly on the desk, sighing gently.

"The papers seem to be in order, but Sesshoumaru, do you realize the responsibility you're taking on? You'll essentially become Inuyasha's parent. Do you have any idea what that's like?"

Any idea what it's like? Sesshoumaru was simultaneously enraged and terrified. What did the stupid woman think he'd been doing all those years while protecting Inuyasha, taking on the abuse that would've been heaped on his helpless younger brother? Was she truly that oblivious to what went on in the foster care system? On the other hand, in foster care there was always someone else around. Now it would really be just Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha against the world. Gelson's money enabled Sesshoumaru to buy a cheap trailer and rent a space for it from a sympathetic rancher who needed a hired hand who could help with the bookkeeping too. There was a home, it was just a very small one. It would do. It would have to.

Not letting any of his emotions show on his face, Sesshoumaru said calmly, "If you don't mind, school starts up again in a few days. I need to get Inuyasha registered in his new school system."

The prosaic reminder seemed to reassure Mrs. Madsen. She gathered the paperwork together and handed it back to Sesshoumaru.

"Inuyasha is outside with the other boys," she told him, accepting defeat gracefully.

Sesshoumaru inclined his head and left.

His brother was playing dodgeball. To be more precise, he was winning at dodgeball. He grabbed the ball and pelted another kid in the arm with it, sending the kid to the sidelines for the rest of the game.

Inuyasha backpedaled and ducked as a dark haired kid on the other team caught the ball on the rebound and hurtled it back at him. Inuyasha allowed the ball to pass over his head and twisted around to catch it in a move Sesshoumaru had taught him, a classic evasion gleaned from watching martial arts films, and a summer of karate classes at a YMCA.

The ball shot through the air, leaving Inuyasha's fingers with a suddenness that took the other kid by surprise. The ball connected with the dark haired kid's mid section, causing him to expel his breath with an audible 'whoosh' as he fell back flat on the ground. The ball rolled off his stomach and he groaned, eyes closed.

Inuyasha ran forward, dropping to his knees by his fallen opponent.

"Miroku, hey, are you alright?"

The kid, Miroku, cracked an eyelid. "Geez, Inuyasha. A couple of inches lower and I'd be a eunuch!"

Inuyasha grinned. "If you're talking, then you must be alright."

Jumping to his feet, he thrust a hand out. "Come on, you whiner!"

The dark haired kid rolled to a sitting position and took Inuyasha's hand, wincing a little as he got his legs under him and let Inuyasha pull him upright.

"Inuyasha." Sesshoumaru called quietly.

His brother stood stalk still for a moment, then turned slowly, delight washing over his features. "Sessh!"

Sesshoumaru had a second to brace himself before Inuyasha's twelve year old body hurtled into his. It was a good thing he'd kept working as a ranch hand so he was still in shape or he'd have been knocked to the floor. Inuyasha was getting stronger. He'd taught his brother how to fight before he'd left. Perhaps it was time to teach him some restraint.

Gently he disentangled himself and held the kid by his shoulders.

"I've come to take you home," he told him.

Inuyasha's eyes got big. "Home?"

"Yes."

A smile came over the boy's face. "We're really going home?"

Taking a step away, Sesshoumaru held out his hand, and Inuyasha took it. He led him to the beat up pickup truck he'd bought and boosted him up into the passenger seat, staring pointedly until Inuyasha buckled up.

He made his way to the driver's side, started the engine and drove away from the group home without a second glance.

Inuyasha stared curiously around the truck cab, uncharacteristically silent. Sesshoumaru began to worry. What if his brother was homesick for his friends already? Sesshoumaru hadn't made any friends at the group home, so it wasn't a big deal for him when he'd left. Inuyasha, on the other hand, tended to draw people with his exuberant nature. They either loved or hated him, and he could be fiercely loyal to his playground buddies. What if he was already regretting leaving? Sesshoumaru looked over at his brother to find Inuyasha gnawing on his lip. What was going through the kid's mind?

"Sesshoumaru, can I ask you something?"

Sesshoumaru steeled himself. Inuyasha was going to ask to go back. Inuyasha had learned to move on in the three months his older brother was away preparing a place for them both to live and a job for himself. What would he say in answer?

"Yes, you can ask me anything," he told his brother quietly.

"What's a eunuch?"

Sesshoumaru sighed.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

Sesshoumaru wiped his forehead with his sleeve. The fence was now mended. He peeled off his work gloves and shoved them into his pocket. He had a bunkhouse full of ranch hands who could've done the job just as easily, but old habits died hard. These were his animals, and he could remember the time when he'd put the old fence up by himself.

It was seven years ago.

Sesshoumaru gazed out across his piece of Montana and let the breeze brush against his face. He flipped his braid back over his shoulder. He'd found that keeping it tied back that way was efficient, and kept him from having to waste time visiting the barber in town.

The animals roaming his land weren't cattle. He'd done the math before buying the ranch. Cattle weren't cost effective. You raised them, slaughtered them to sell the meat, and they were gone.

End of profit.

Llamas, on the other hand, were a self-perpetuating profit source. Llama wool was still in hot demand and the shearing each year just got more and more profitable as Sesshoumaru's breeding plan led to softer and thus more expensive wool.

He just wished the beasts weren't so damned stupid sometimes. Their curious nature put them at risk. He'd had to decimate the local coyote population when first starting the ranch.

Now buffalo, on the other hand…

Sesshoumaru crossed his arms and thought of the fifteen beasts he now had roaming around the north side of the ranch. They might not be a self-perpetuating profit source, but exotic meats were now quite chic, especially in other countries. He had a contract set up with a Japanese buyer that would prove very lucrative in the future.

Leaning up against the now mended fence, Sesshoumaru allowed himself to dream of the future. Inuyasha was now eighteen. He'd put his baby brother's name on the deed to the ranch and set up a living trust. If anything ever happened to him, Inuyasha would be cared for. Though it had taken all of the seven years to drum ranching principles into Inuyasha's head, Sesshoumaru was now content that the brat would be able to keep the ranch going if need be. Now it was Sesshoumaru's job to expand on what he'd already done, to make the ranch so profitable that they'd always be safe.

The first years had been tough. Living in that tiny trailer, taking Inuyasha to school each day, then working his tail off for Jonas, the rancher who'd given him his first job after leaving Gelson's ranch, was an eye opening experience.

Jonas was talkative where Gelson was quiet. Sesshoumaru learned more than he wanted to about the man's personal life with his witch of an ex-wife. The account books backed up the man's story. The alimony she'd wrangled was bleeding him dry. Jonas' ranch was a sinking ship. Gelson was gone, stuck in a nursing home somewhere by his family after a stroke, so going back to his old job was no longer an option.

Unable to afford college, Sesshoumaru took correspondence courses, picking and choosing the ones that would help him with his goal, buying a ranch of his own. Llamas were the best sort of start-up venture. He found a ranch in the next county that the banks foreclosed on. It was a run-down piece of property far away from the nearest town. It would take a lot of work to get it back in shape, but Sesshoumaru knew he could do it. He just needed the capital.

He got together a business proposal, bought a suit, and went calling on bank loan departments, only to get shot down by each one.

"Too young," most of them said.

"Llamas? This is cow country," from the hide-bound ones.

"You have no collateral," which was infuriating, but true. The cheap trailor and beat up pickup truck were Sesshoumaru's only possessions, and weren't exactly impressive.

He started searching farther afield, other banks, other towns, but it was no good.

Then he got a letter in the mail from a small, family owned bank just two towns over, saying they'd heard of his business proposal and wanted to see it for themselves. Sesshoumaru bet they'd heard of it. The sneers on some of the loan officer's faces made him aware that news of his quest had made the rounds in the banking communities. Llamas weren't exactly commonplace in this neck of the woods.

Still, it was the first sign of interest he'd had, so Sesshoumaru went, after quietly researching the bank and finding it was solvent, solid, and had a reputation for investing in the local community. At this point he'd be willing to consider a loan from the Mafia if it'd get him the money he needed. Without a loan, the ranch was just a dream. Without a loan or a college education, Sesshoumaru was doomed to a string of dead end ranch hand jobs with no security and worse, no backup plan for Inuyasha if something went wrong.

He'd dropped Inuyasha off at school and told him he'd be late. Inuyasha hadn't cared. He'd decided to try out for the school play and got a part in it, which would keep him occupied after school.

When he got to the bank he was told the bank's loan officer was out sick that day, so Sesshoumaru put his proposal to the bank manager himself, Mr. Bixler of Bixler's Bank. Sesshoumaru was put through one of the most rigorous question and answer sessions he'd ever faced.

Bixler was a short man with hair beginning to go grey and the slight paunchiness of a body experiencing middle-aged spread. He had a round pleasant face that housed piercing green eyes. The eyes raked through Sesshoumaru's prospectus and Sesshoumaru himself. His questions were hard, demanding, but Sesshoumaru answered each one, even when they became personal. He couldn't allow discomfort to jeopardize the loan.

"What of your family?" asked Bixler. "I see you have no family members listed to co-sign your loan. That's very unusual." He sat back and gazed at Sesshoumaru measuringly.

"I have no family apart from a younger brother."

"I see. You're an orphan then?"

For a moment, Sesshoumaru was tempted to say yes, but he had the impression that with this man honesty was everything. If he lied and was later caught out in the lie, he could lose the loan. OK then, if the man wanted honesty, he'd get it.

"My mother was a drunken slut who abandoned us when I was ten years old. I couldn't tell you who my father was, or my brother's father for that matter."

Sesshoumaru kept his eyes locked on the banker, refusing to be embarrassed by his admission. He saw shock and a trace of something else in the man's eyes. It looked almost like disappointment. Too bad. Not everyone had fairy tale happily ever after family lives. If Sesshoumaru's lack of a conventional upbringing scotched the deal, then so be it.

Then the banker surprised him.

"Everything looks to be in order," he said, placing his hand on the prospectus in front of him. "We'll be happy to give you the loan."

He stood and extended his hand across the desk. Sesshoumaru stared at it disbelievingly for a second, then shook it firmly, not allowing himself to smile in case it jinxed the deal. Just like that, he became a rancher.

Over the years he saw Bixler a few more times. The man took checking on the bank's investments seriously. Sesshoumaru grew to look forward to his visits, if only to show off his improvements. He also sent yearly fiscal reports to the bank. He worked his tail off to show a profit in record time. He and Inuyasha stayed in the trailer until Inuyasha hit high school, since Sesshoumaru didn't want to waste any money on unnecessary spending at first. Inuyasha teased him that the ranch hands in the bunk house had better accommodations. Sesshoumaru had renovated the dilapidated bunk house himself and knew there was some truth to his brother's words.

The former owner's ranch house was gone when he bought the place, destroyed in a fire. Only the foundation and chimney remained. When it came time to build a new one, Sesshoumaru chose a different location, separated from the bunk house and other outbuildings by a hill.

He created a driveway by clearing out the middle of a stand of trees and grading the entry point in a gentle semi-circular route from the road to the house. The house faced the road and had a view of the mountains, while the trees shielded it and gave it privacy from passing motorists. There was a porch too. Sesshoumaru always wanted a porch, and chose a house plan that had all the modern conveniences, yet looked like it had been there since the 1800s.

Bixler never saw the house, because Sesshoumaru paid off the last of the loan about a year before breaking ground on construction. He'd made a home for his brother.

Inuyasha.

Sesshoumaru felt a scowl creeping over his face. Why couldn't the stupid kid understand that things like houses and ranches took work? It was work that demanded Inuyasha's presence. Sesshoumaru longed to mentor his younger brother the way Gelson mentored him, but Inuyasha couldn't see the value in it. Instead, he wanted to become an actor. Until Inuyasha finally got his driver's license on the third try, it was Sesshoumaru who had to drive all the way out to the high school late at night to pick him up from drama practice. Sesshoumaru dutifully attended all of the school plays, but couldn't see the point in dressing up and pretending to be something you weren't.

If it hadn't been for Inuyasha's relentless begging, there wouldn't even be a TV in the family room of the ranch house.

Speaking of the devil, it was about time he went home and figured out something to make for supper. Learning to cook was a necessary part of raising a kid brother, and Sesshoumaru attacked cookbooks with the same single-minded devotion that made his ranch a success. He wasn't about to let a woman on the ranch to cook for them, and the cook over at the bunkhouse had a pretty limited repertoire.

Sesshoumaru pushed himself off the fence and swung himself up on Ah-un, the mottled brown horse he'd bought from the Indian reservation. She wasn't much to look at with her ugly blotchy markings, but she had strength and an even temperament. She suited him perfectly, unlike Inuyasha's fiery and unpredictable stallion, Tetsusaiga.

In a misguided attempt to give Inuyasha an opportunity to think for himself, he'd given his brother money to buy a horse and sent him off to the local horse show to find one. Trust Inuyasha to bring back a big flashy animal that wasn't trained properly. Tetsusaiga was gorgeous to look at and had strength, but Inuyasha wasn't capable yet of breaking him to his will. The horse was too much for him. Sesshoumaru wondered how many times the fool had to be bucked off before he realized this.

He urged Ah-un into a canter as he crossed through the herd of bleating llamas, slowing to a trot as he came to the gate in the fence leading to the barn. Dismounting, he led his horse through, closed the gate behind him, then walked him over to the barn, unsaddling and brushing the mare down quickly. Ah-un wickered and nudged at his shoulder when he finished, her way of saying 'thank you'. Sesshoumaru patted her nose and closed the stall door behind him, nodding to the stableboy, Koe.

He walked the path around the hill, and reveled in the quiet. It was amazing how well a lump of dirt and grass cut down on the noise and bustle of a working ranch. The ranch house lay before him, nestled up against a fold in the small ridge. The shingled roof extended down over the porch, the edges bare of the hanging plants Yura, the interior designer Sesshoumaru hired, had wanted. Yura had wanted other things from Sesshoumaru as well, but he'd made it clear he only wanted her professional skills. He didn't need a woman in his life.

She'd taken the rejection with an ill grace, but gave him what he wanted, a comfortable interior with woven Indian rugs, sturdy brown leather furniture, and plenty of bookshelves. Just because Sesshoumaru hadn't gone to college was no reason he couldn't continue his education. Books on cattle breeding, ranching history, geology, and agriculture lined his walls.

Walking past the rocking chairs on the porch, Sesshoumaru opened the front door and slipped inside to find Inuyasha in the kitchen, his paws in a bag of chips. He knew he shouldn't have given the kid the job of grocery shopping. His cabinets were now full of Fritos, potato chips, and ramen containers.

"Hi Sessh!"

At Sesshoumaru's glare, Inuyasha had the wisdom to grimace and correct himself. "I mean, Sesshoumaru. When's dinner?"

Sesshoumaru plucked the bag of chips out of Inuyasha's hands and put it back in the cabinet. "Soon."

"Hey! I was eating," Inuyasha protested.

"You're always eating," Sesshoumaru told him, looking him over dispassionately.

His baby brother had filled out during the seven years on the ranch. Making him do chores before school and in the summer saw to that. Inuyasha was now a stocky five foot four inch tall teen with shaggy white blonde hair, bangs, and a cocky attitude. At six feet, Sesshoumaru towered over his brother, and it looked like his brother wasn't going to grow any taller.

"If you're so concerned with eating, why not help with dinner?" he asked.

Inuyasha immediately began to back away. "Uh, I've got lines to run for the play."

"Really?" Sesshoumaru asked mildly, opening the refrigerator. "It's Saturday tomorrow, and from the schedule your drama teacher sent home you don't have any practices planned over the weekend."

"Well, no, but I want to be ready for Monday."

Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow but didn't comment. Inuyasha was terrible at lying. As the silence went on, he began to fidget, so Sesshoumaru took pity on him.

"You've got Saturday and Sunday to practice your lines, and study for your chemistry test," he reminded him.

"Uh, about that. We're low on milk again and there's some stuff I need for the play. I thought I'd check out the thrift stores in Running Creek. Can I go to town tomorrow?"

Looking into the refrigerator, Sesshoumaru sighed. They were out of milk. The kid drank it like it was going out of style. That much was true, but there was something in his voice when he spoke of the thrift stores that caught Sesshoumaru's attention. Inuyasha was lying.

Backing out of the cold rectangular opening, Sesshoumaru shut the door, a package of ground beef in hand.

"Spaghetti Bolognese?" he asked.

Inuyasha's eyes flicked to the hamburger then back to his brother's face. "Yeah, sure. Sounds great. But what about Saturday?"

Sesshoumaru set the hamburger down on the kitchen counter. "Why not?" he asked rhetorically. Inuyasha flashed him a grin then escaped from the kitchen before Sesshoumaru asked him to do something really hard. Like boil water.

Sesshoumaru stared down at the red meat in front of him. He'd let Inuyasha go, but he'd follow him too. The kid hadn't lied so much since that girl, Kikyo, broke his heart sophomore year. That was a different sort of lying, a pretending to be alright when Sesshoumaru knew he'd been crying. For all his bluster, Inuyasha had a tender heart. It made Sesshoumaru despair sometimes.

This lying was troublesome. Whatever the cause, he'd find out tomorrow when he figured out what Inuyasha was up to in town.

Tearing the packaging off the meat, Sesshoumaru began to cook.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Much love to all my anonymous reviewers. I can't use the review reply option without getting signed reviews, so I wanted to let you know in my A/N how much I appreciate getting your reviews. The bounty hunter issue will become clear in chapter five, and Kagura will show up then as well.

CHAPTER FOUR

Running Creek was a two hour drive away. Inuyasha made it in an hour and forty five minutes. Not for the first time Sesshoumaru congratulated himself on having the foresight to put a lojack system in his kid brother's car, and to have a sheriff friend of his rig up a monitor so Sesshoumaru could find his brother's car when he needed.

After the fiasco with the horse, Sesshoumaru did some research and bought his brother a car on his seventeenth birthday. It was a Volvo, a car with the safest track record in crash tests. Inuyasha got to pick the color. It was red.

The red Volvo was parked in a public lot down town. For someone who wanted to scope out thrift stores, Inuyasha picked an awfully upscale parking lot.

Finding a spot a block down from the lot, Sesshoumaru got out of his foreman's car, which he'd borrowed that morning, and fed the meter with quarters. Inuyasha was feckless at times, but he wouldn't fail to recognize his own brother's car if he saw it. Tipping his cowboy hat low over his eyes, Sesshoumaru strode down the sidewalk after his brother.

Inuyasha was hurrying, brushing by shoppers and businessmen out on lunch break. This part of town was familiar to Sesshoumaru. It was the street where Bixler Bank was located, the place that gave Sesshoumaru the loan he needed to buy the ranch. To his surprise, Inuyasha stopped in front of the bank to talk to a woman. He tapped her on the shoulder and she turned, giving Sesshoumaru a view of her profile.

She was well dressed in a pink skirt and jacket that screamed designer duds. Platinum blonde hair fell from her brow in a smooth wave, ending just under her chin. She wore pearls, and stood with the elegant stance that only the truly rich ever seemed to achieve. She was also much older than Inuyasha.

Sesshoumaru felt himself relax a little. This was no tryst. His little brother favored brunettes, and he just couldn't see this elegant creature wanting his uncouth rough and tumble brother as a gigolo.

The woman smiled and ran her hand through her hair, turning slightly so that Sesshoumaru could see more of her face. Alarm bells started going off in his head. He stepped forward, stopping about a foot away from them as people milled past them on the sidewalk.

Inuyasha saw him first and began sputtering.

"I…you…how?"

The woman turned completely, eyes widening in shock. Sesshoumaru stared back. There was something tugging at his memory.

She started backing away, towards the bank. "I…have to go," she muttered.

The bank's doors opened. A young woman with brown hair tied back in a ponytail and a Bixler Bank name tag on her black jacket lapel exited and ran up to the woman in pink.

"Mrs. Bixler, your husband told me to tell you he'd be out in five minutes."

"That's fine, thank you Katie."

Not noticing the tension rising from Mrs. Bixler, the bank worker scampered back into the building. Mrs. Bixler followed after her.

"Don't go!" Inuyasha called out.

The Bixler woman stiffened, but kept walking towards the bank.

Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes at his brother. Why was Inuyasha talking to the bank owner's wife?

"Mom!"

The world stopped.

Sesshoumaru slowly turned back towards the bank. Mrs. Bixler pivoted as well, as if drawn by his gaze. He looked at her, really looked, and saw under the expertly applied makeup, the full cheeks of a well-fed and pampered middle-aged woman, the bone structure of the rail thin, big bosomed drunk his mother had once been. Back then her hair was long, tapered around her face, and limp. Now it was full, shiny, and expertly trimmed. Gone were the gaunt heroin-chic cheeks that made her look like a fashion model. She was healthier, rounder, but she was indeed the woman who'd ditched them in a lawyer's office sixteen years ago.

Feeling as if he'd been punched, Sesshoumaru took a deep breath.

"Inuyasha, come with me," he ordered, his eyes never leaving the woman staring back at him, her expression pleading for…what? Understanding? Forgiveness?

"But Sessh, she's our mom! Don't you want to get to know her a little?"

"We're going!" barked Sesshoumaru in a voice that he rarely had to use twice to get his brother to obey.

He wrenched his gaze off his mother and stared down at Inuyasha. The kid's face was red with anger.

"No! I won't. She's the one who convinced her husband to give you that bank loan. We owe her Sesshoumaru. It's about time you knew it." Inuyasha had his hands balled into fists, unconsciously adopting a battle stance in his defiance.

Sesshoumaru knew from the expression on his brother's face that he was telling the truth this time. The words washed around in his brain.

Bank loan.

Owe her.

Turning on his heel, Sesshoumaru walked away, ignoring his brother's voice calling his name over and over.

The drive back to the ranch was a blur. Pulling up to the bunkhouse, Sesshoumaru tossed the car keys to his foreman without a word and walked around the path to the house. His house. But was it? Suddenly the sight of it with its homey gables, wood shingles, and welcoming porch made him want to vomit.

Wheeling, he climbed the hill behind the house that he'd once been so proud of, and surveyed his land. From the hilltop he could see the bunkhouse, stables, and sheds of his little kingdom. Beyond it were the wide meadows where the llamas wandered around grazing contentedly. He turned to the north and could just see a few black dots, the new buffalo, beyond the far ridge. His land, yet not his land. All his accomplishments, his success, felt like ashes in his mouth.

He owed it all to his mother. He should have realized, should have been suspicious when a bank sent a letter to him asking to hear his loan proposal. Banks don't come to businesses begging to help them. It was the other way around. He was a fool.

Sesshoumaru shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. None of this was possible if he hadn't got that bank loan. All that he thought he'd done on his own was due to his mother's interference.

He felt a lump in his pocket and brought it out. It was a bic lighter that he'd confiscated from Koe and that Souta boy when he caught them sneaking a smoke behind the barn. The looks on their faces when he'd snatched it from them told him they wouldn't be trying that again any time soon.

Idly he flicked the lighter on, watching the flame for a second before flicking it off again. How easy it would be to use it to light the house on fire, then the barn, the outbuildings, and the stable. He could send the hands out for the day. Give them false errands in town or just tell them to take the rest of the day off. It'd be easy to get the horses out of the stable and turn them out to pasture. He could destroy everything his mother's husband's money had built.

He gripped the lighter so hard that his fingers whitened, then let it drop, closed, onto the hilltop. Inuyasha's name was on the deed. Inuyasha, who'd met with their mother behind his back. Let Inuyasha keep what their mother had given them if he liked her so much.

There, nestled beside the garage built into the side of the house was the trailer he and Inuyasha had stayed in the first few years when he'd worked the ranch. His old pickup truck was there as well, a sort of all purpose ranch vehicle he let the hands use when they needed to get places that didn't require a horse. Those at least were his.

He made his way down the hill and went to pack some clothes.

"Sesshoumaru? Sessh!" Inuyasha's voice rang out, accompanied by the slamming of the front door.

Sesshoumaru's fingers stilled on the shirt he was pushing into the duffel bag on his bed. He zipped the bag shut and swung the handles over his shoulder. In seconds he left the room without a backward glance and made his way down the stairs.

Inuyasha was waiting at the bottom of them.

"Come back with me, to town," his brother demanded.

"No."

Sesshoumaru stepped off the last stairstep and paused.

"Why not?" Inuyasha yelled belligerently. "Why can't you just give her a chance? You're not being fair."

"Fair?" Sesshoumaru roared.

He dropped his duffle bag. There stood his brother, who didn't even remember what their mother had done, what she was like, telling him he wasn't being fair when it was Inuyasha who'd gone behind his back. From the way they'd been standing together on the sidewalk, it was clear today's meeting hadn't been the first.

His fist was out, and before he knew it he'd knocked Inuyasha to the ground. He hadn't pulled the punch at all, and Inuyasha lay there, stunned, too dazed to move.

Sesshoumaru picked up his bag, went out to the truck, hitched the trailer to it, and drove away.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Six years later.

Sesshoumaru curled his fist, surveying the scrapes on his knuckles and remembering the satisfying crunch as he broke the cult leader's nose. His last job hadn't been the usual bounty hunting expedition; it was a legal extraction.

A spoilt, gullible sixteen year old had drifted into the clutches of a charismatic self-proclaimed savior. Her divorced parents, shocked for once into solidarity, pooled their resources to hire Sesshoumaru to bring her back. Two years shy of eighteen, the girl was still legally a minor, so technically the job was returning a minor child to custodial care. The fact that she hadn't wanted to return wasn't his business.

The cult leader's resistance to losing his favorite nubile teenaged sex toy was. Sesshoumaru was very good at his business. The beauty of it was that the cult leader couldn't press charges, not unless he wanted to explain to a court what he was doing in bed with a girl who'd turned out to be jailbait. The courts and the prison system didn't look favorably on men who had sex with minors. After learning the true age of his bed partner, the cult leader thought it wiser to go tend his bleeding nose than continue to fight to keep the girl. She was now home with her family.

Leaning his shoulders against the warm metal panels of his trailor, Sesshoumaru crossed his arms, concealing his injured knuckles as a family walked by. The woman smiled politely, and the man tipped his hat. Sesshoumaru tipped his right back, using his uninjured left hand.

You had to love Texas. Men wore cowboy hats, so Sesshoumaru could too without sticking out like a sore thumb.

The two kids with the couple giggled, straining against their mother's grip as she held their hands. Sesshoumaru grunted approvingly. It was a dangerous world. It didn't make sense to let kids roam free in an RV park.

RV parks were great. For a nominal fee you could unhitch and leave your temporary metal home and roam around to your heart's content. Better yet, they had sewage dumping facilitites. Sesshoumaru glanced over at the large, snake-like tube connected to his trailer. It'd be done soon and he could move on again.

His trailer wasn't the same one he'd left the ranch with. He'd upgraded since then to a sturdier model which he'd altered with certain modifications the trailer company never dreamed of. A nearly sound-proofed extra toilet cabinet with iron bars perfect for attaching handcuffs now graced the place where a closet used to be.

Sesshoumaru was old school. He liked the heft and finality of metal cuffs. Those strips of plastic always struck him as being faintly ridiculous, like something you'd use to truss a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.

'Thankful' wasn't a word Sesshoumaru would use to describe the escaped cons and bail jumpers he'd had in the cell-like toilet. He reserved that space for the worst offenders. Usually he just shackled his prisoners' hands and feet to the iron rings set in the dashboard and floor of the passenger side of his truck.

He'd been about ready to relegate the cult girl to the toilet cabinet after an hour of her company.

Sesshoumaru hated carrying women. They didn't know when to shut up. The girl kept crying and carrying on about her 'Glorious Leader'. The idiot actually forced his followers to call him that.

'Glorious Leader'

As if a title could make it a reality. The only reason Sesshoumaru took the job was the hefty fee. He was ready to get back to his main business, bounty hunting.

Sewage tank drainage complete, Sesshoumaru unhooked the trailer from the facilities and moved his rig back to the spot he'd rented. Re-attaching the electrical lines took a minute, and then he was sitting in front of his laptop ready to find his next job.

That was the beauty of bounty hunting. You were a free agent and could go wherever you wanted to and take whatever jobs looked interesting. He had no property or family to tie him to one spot. He also liked bounty hunting. He liked outthinking his prey, liked roaming. If sometimes he missed the warm strength of a horse under him instead of a sturdy American made truck, what of it? It was a long time since he'd stopped playing cowboy on a ranch and lived in the real world. It was a world riddled with criminals and Sesshoumaru was at home in it.

Powering up the laptop, Sesshoumaru clicked on the icon for one of several bounty hunting websites he used. He scrolled through the list of potential targets, mostly small time bail jumpers with low profit returns. Dissatisfied, he clicked on a different website, a less official one.

There.

Ned Raku.

Wanted on five counts of rape and murder. Raku was a serial murderer who'd escaped while awaiting trial at the courthouse. A power outage triggered the misfiring of a fire alarm and in the confusion Raku killed the guard watching over him, stole the man's wallet and gun, and got away.

It wasn't a matter of jumping bail, since Raku was being held over for trial when he escaped, but there was a reward. One of the girls Raku had killed in Oregon was a college girl with a rich daddy. The father was offering a quarter of a million dollars reward for the perp. Clever wording made it clear that the man didn't care if the perp was delivered dead or alive.

Sesshoumaru left the website and clicked onto one of his favorite search engines to begin his research into the life of Ned Raku.

Part of bounty hunting was learning to think like the criminals he hunted, figuring out their haunts and habits. Criminals were usually predictable. They always went to ground in familiar surroundings. The trick was finding which of those places they'd hide in.

o-o-o

He found Raku two weeks later in an abandoned fishing cabin deep in the woods off a logging trail. The cabin once belonged to Raku's father, before the banks foreclosed on it when he was a kid. No one else wanted to buy it.

Parking the truck and trailer a ways up the dirt road, Sesshoumaru got out, drew his gun, and crept through the pines up to the cabin, the smell of dirt and dead pine needles invading his nostrils. The website considered Raku armed and dangerous, and Sesshoumaru wasn't taking any chances. He'd crossed states lines to get to the escaped convict; he wasn't about to go home empty handed.

As he came up on the cabin he saw a nondescript four door sedan parked off to the side of the wooden building. It was a Honda civic. Keeping out of the line of sight of the dirty windows, Sesshoumaru made his way to the car and laid his hand on the hood. It was still faintly warm. The driver's side door was unlocked. A woman's purse lay on the passenger side floor, contents scattered, as if someone had upended it.

Victim number six?

From the information Sesshoumaru gathered, Raku tended to kill his victims right after he assaulted them. He wondered briefly where Raku had dumped the woman's body, then dismissed the thought. Reaching under the dash, he popped the hood, then walked around to the front of the car and quickly disabled the engine.

Raku wouldn't be escaping using the Honda. It would take a mechanic to fix an engine after Sesshoumaru dealt with it.

Gun in hand, Sesshoumaru ghosted his way along the side wall of the cabin, ducking under the eaves that sagged drunkenly along the edge of the roof. The structure was small and utilitarian, with no grace to it. No wonder the bank hadn't been able to re-sell it. It was maybe big enough for one room with a bath and kitchenette.

Rounding the corner, Sesshoumaru snuck a quick look in the front window, then pressed himself flat against the wall.

Raku had company. The rapist was struggling with a woman on a bed set against the far wall of the square shaped main room.

Sesshoumaru took another look before pressing back against the wall again.

The woman was fighting on her knees with quiet desperation. Her blouse was half torn off, and her skirt was bunched around her waist, pantyhose shredded where Raku had grabbed at her.

Raku was also on his knees on the bed, cornering the woman against the side and far wall where the bed was set. He'd found jeans and a tee shirt somewhere, probably bought with money from the guard's wallet. The wallet lay on a low coffee table away from the bed, along with the gun. Raku kept his body between the table and the girl.

There was a crash and the sound of breaking glass.

Raku swore viciously. "You'll pay for that," the man's voice came, low and hateful. "That was my mother's lamp."

"Good!" The woman's voice answered, also low pitched and recklessly defiant. There had been a small lamp at one end of the coffee table when Sesshoumaru looked inside. Evidently the woman had lunged for the gun and missed.

Sesshoumaru heard the sound of a slap, and the sharp exclamation of the woman crying out in pain. For a moment he considered letting Raku get on with the rape. Apart from sleep, there was no other moment when humans were more vulnerable than in the throes of sex.

He owed the woman nothing. No one had saved him from violence in the foster care system when he was young.

The sound of ripping fabric and a whimper came from inside the cabin.

Grimacing angrily at himself, Sesshoumaru rushed past the window, pausing at the door.

Raising his foot, he kicked the door in, bursting through the doorway at a diagonal, with his shoulders against the side of the doorframe, gun trained on the bed to his left.

The woman lay beyond Raku, dazed with pain, both hands on the cheek where he'd hit her, her legs tucked protectively up against her chest.

Raku's hands were at his hips, easing his jeans down over his buttocks.

The target was irresistible.

Sesshoumaru took another step into the room and fired just as Raku began to turn his head. A red line appeared across the upper slope of the man's backside and began to bead up with blood. Raku howled and fell face down on top of the woman's legs.

Galvanized, she kicked him away and hunched back against the wall, as far away as she could get in such close quarters.

Sesshoumaru walked forward, keeping his eyes on Raku, and retrieved the gun from the coffee table, heedless of the broken bits of lamp on the floor that crunched beneath his boots. He stepped back from the bed, shoving Raku's gun in his coat pocket, and keeping his now smoking one trained on the man.

Sesshoumaru flicked his gaze over to the woman for a second, meeting her eyes. They were a peculiar shade of brown, so light they were near amber in appearance, and looked almost red in the setting winter sun spilling in through the open doorway. He saw that Raku had managed to rip the rest of her blouse off and she huddled against the wall in a magenta bra, hiked up grey wool skirt, and shredded hose. Her hair was dark and cut on the short side, a little over chin length with tousled bangs. She was small boned and lithe rather than curvaceous. She looked him over from head to toe before bringing her eyes back up to his.

"Who the hell are you? The lone ranger?" she asked incredulously in a low, throaty voice.

Sesshoumaru felt his eyes narrow. He was wearing a light blue shirt, jeans, black Stetson cowboy hat, boots, and a black trench coat. From what he could see of her skirt, it was a slim, good quality business garment type skirt in charcoal grey, and it matched the grey pumps on the floor by the bed. The shredded blouse, also on the floor, was wine colored silk. This was a city girl, and a snobbish one too.

Her eyes drifted to a point beyond him when he didn't answer right away.

Suspicious, Sesshoumaru whirled to face the corner of the room to the right of door, an area he hadn't been able to see when he first peeked through the window. The corner by the door contained another bed. On it sat a little girl, staring back at him emotionlessly.

She had long, fair hair and was five or six years old, wearing a plain, white long-sleeved dress. She looked like a doll, lifeless save for the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Her eyes were pools of nothingness, no expression in them.

"Who…?"

Raku stopped moaning and cursing into the mattress and turned his head to say, "That's Kanna, my daughter."

There was a weird note of triumphant possessiveness in the man's tone that raised Sesshoumaru's hackles.

"He used her to lure me in the parking lot," The woman said, suppressed anger making her voice shake as she edged her way off the bed, letting her hand fall from her cheek and keeping a wary eye on Raku as she stepped delicately to the floor in her stocking feet amidst the shattered glass from the lamp. The large red mark by her jaw foreshadowed the coming of a bruise.

The woman nodded towards the child as she stepped around the bits of glass. "She's his kid alright."

The child continued to stare, as if uninterested in the conversation going on about her. Physically, she reminded Sesshoumaru of his brother at that age, small, spindly with white blonde hair and large eyes. Where Inuyasha's eyes had been expressive and incapable of hiding his feelings, this girl's were flat, neutral and uncommunicative. Inuyasha could never have sat still for so long either. No normal child could.

The presence of a child explained how Raku managed to snatch his victims. A little girl pretending to be lost, leading the victims to her father? It was a perfect setup. It also explained why the police never found any signs of a struggle in the last location the women were seen.

Betrayals come in all shapes and sizes.

"Kanna's worth ten of you," Raku said scathingly. "She knows her place."

For a second, Sesshoumaru thought the man was talking to him, but his look of malice was directed at the woman.

Grimacing, Raku pulled his pants over his wounded rear and fastened them.

The woman's hands clenched into fists, and she looked as if she were about to launch herself at the man who'd just tried to rape her. If that happened and Sesshoumaru was forced to shoot through her when Raku tried to use her as a shield, there'd be a lot of unpleasant questions.

Sesshoumaru pulled a pair of metal handcuffs from his coat and tossed them on the mattress by Raku's knees. The movement startled the woman as the cuffs flew by her, as Sesshoumaru intended.

"Put those on," he ordered Raku. The man glared but obeyed.

The dark haired woman reached down and picked up the remains of her blouse, saw that it was shredded beyond use, and dropped it again with a frown. She bent and slipped her grey heeled shoes on her feet, then stood, back straight and chin lifted, arms at her sides as if daring him to say anything about her lack of a shirt.

Sesshoumaru shifted his gaze back to Raku, and motioned the woman to take a step away.

"We're going," he told the man evenly. "You first."

Raku glared but obeyed, crawling slowly off the bed, shackled hands in front, to make the short walk to the door. Sesshoumaru kept his gun trained on the man's back and waited until he'd taken two steps across the threshold before starting after him, careful to keep some distance between them. Raku was a snake. It wasn't smart to stay in striking distance of a rattler.

Behind him, he heard the woman make an impatient noise, probably irritated that Sesshoumaru was ignoring her.

"What about Kanna?" she asked.

Sesshoumaru paused. Outside the doorway he saw Raku's shoulders tense up in interest. He took a quick glance over at the still, white haired girl on the bed. There was something profoundly unnatural about that child.

"Leave her," he ordered tersely, and followed Raku through the doorway.


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

"You can't leave her, she's just a little girl!"

Kagura followed the white haired cowboy all the way out to the road after retrieving her purse and keys from her car. The car wouldn't start, typical of her luck. So she had to convince her savior to give her a ride to the nearest town.

Her suit jacket was long gone. She remembered taking it off and placing it around the shoulders of the little blonde girl who'd asked for help finding her father in the mall parking lot. It was cold the morning Kagura stopped off at the mall to grab a coffee.

The kid's father turned out to be Raku, and Kagura's jacket wound up on the asphalt along with her latte. Kagura ended up playing chauffer at gunpoint to an escaped prisoner and his unnaturally quiet and obedient daughter.

The drive to the cabin was a nightmare. Kagura had an active mind, but every plan she came up with to get away, Raku anticipated and countered, whispering to her of what would happen if she tried to signal a passing motorist, put her hazard lights on, or tried to speed or crash on purpose to attract attention. When civilization faded away and they'd switched to logging roads, her heart sank lower and lower. Where they were going there wouldn't be anyone to call to for help.

But Kagura was a fighter. On the bed, even when it was hopeless, she resisted. Raku, curse him, seemed to enjoy it. He was twice her size, and she knew in the end he'd win, but it wasn't in her nature to go down without a fight.

Then, when the blonde man crashed in to save her, all she could do was make a crack about the lone ranger. She had a smart mouth. It got her into trouble a lot.

When the man finished securing Raku in his trailer, she was there waiting to confront him as he came out the trailer door.

He ignored her, brushing by her as if she were minor annoyance. Bad move. No one treated her like that.

She ran around him and stood directly in his way, hands on her hips, the fact that she was shirtless all but forgotten except for the goosebumps rising all over her body. It may not have snowed yet, but the weather was still damned cold.

"Listen to me, damn it!" she demanded.

The man stopped, eyes carefully on her face. He had to bend his head down slightly to do it since she was five feet two inches and he was at least six feet tall, but at least he was paying attention to her.

"I heard you," he informed her coldly. "I'm not taking her."

"My car won't start. You're her only way out of here."

Kagura saw a muscle clench briefly in the man's jaw before he answered.

"That's not my problem," he told her, lowering his head and attempting to brush by her again on the right.

She grabbed his arm to keep him there and swung around so she was still in his way.

Opening her mouth to continue, she shut it quietly as she felt the muscles under her fingers tense and sensed the strength behind them. The man stared at her hand on his arm then slowly raised his gaze to stare her down. The expression in his eyes made her release her grip on his arm instantly.

So, he definitely wasn't the grabby sort. It made for a nice change from the usual men she met in her line of work. In her job as insurance claims investigator, she often had to get information about claimants the company suspected of trying to defraud them. Sometimes that meant subtly questioning the friends and acquaintances of the claimant, and acting friendly to get information. Kagura couldn't even count the number of times she'd been groped or pinched during barstool conversations in order to get the information she needed.

Angry at herself for being intimidated, Kagura did what she always did best. She attacked.

Throwing her arms out, she gestured at the empty road and dense forest around them, noting with a twinge of satisfaction that his gaze dropped briefly to her chest as the movement emphasized the Victoria's Secret pushup bra she'd spent way too much money on.

"Look around you! There's no one here. She'll starve to death out on her own like this, and I'll never be able to find this place again to lead a search party back."

The man looked skeptical.

"It's true, I've got a lousy sense of direction."

His expression didn't change.

Kagura let her arms fall.

"Look," she said quietly. "You've seen the kid. She's not normal. God knows what he's done to her."

The silence drew on as Kagura let her words fade into the forest. The silence of the woods thickened. She kept her eyes stuck firmly on his, refusing to drop them. They both knew what Raku had probably done to his daughter to turn her into that mindless puppet. That crack he'd made about Kanna 'knowing her place' clinched it. She saw that knowledge reflected in the man's eyes, but there was still no give to him.

"If I can forgive her, why can't you?" she asked, dropping the anger and the challenge from her voice and her manner.

The man turned and walked away. Kagura gasped at the suddenness of it, prepared to wheel around and plant herself in front of the truck if she had to, when she realized he wasn't walking towards the truck. He was on his way back to the cabin.

Wrapping her arms around herself for warmth, she waited beneath the pines, the truck and trailer to her back.

Within minutes, the man reappeared, carrying the little girl, Kanna, in his arms. She lay there placidly, not looking at him.

The man walked by Kagura, opened the passenger side door of the truck and sat the little girl down on the seat. Then he turned to look back at Kagura.

"You coming?"

She nodded and he stepped back to let her past him. As she reached up to grasp the top of the door to pull herself into the truck's cab she felt cloth settle around her shoulders. Sitting down on the fake leather upholstery next to Kanna, she saw that he'd wrapped his trench coat around her. Before she could say thank you, he shut the passenger side door in her face and walked around the front of the truck.

Automatically, she looked at the ignition, but the keys weren't in it. Locking him out and taking the truck wasn't an option, even if she gave in to her yearning to teach him a lesson in humility. She patted the pocket of the coat where she'd seen him drop Raku's gun, but it was empty. He must've secured it in the trailer while locking up Raku. He was no dummy.

The truck moved slightly as he opened the driver's side door and slid in, keys out of his pocket and thrust in the ignition as he slammed the door.

"I'm Kagura, by the way."

He froze, his hand on the key, ready to turn it, and looked at her.

"Sesshoumaru," he answered, giving his name and waiting for her reaction. With a name like Sesshoumaru, he'd probably seen the gamut of surprised comments and asinine questions.

Well, she'd never been one for doing the expected. Kagura let her voice take on a noncommittal hum.

"So what are you waiting for, Sesshoumaru? Let's get out of here."

There was a flash of something in his eyes, but Kagura couldn't tell if it was annoyance or humor before it was gone, and he turned key and drove off.

0-0-0

The sun set and they drove through the night in silence. Dinner time came and went, but Kagura wasn't very hungry and let it slide. The child, Kanna, eventually slumped against her, a warm sleeping presence. People thought of Kagura as a cold hearted bitch. She'd been called that and worse several times in the course of her job, but the truth was she didn't have a heart of stone.

There was something about a sleeping child that made her instinctively lower her voice so as not to disturb her when she at last spoke to Sesshoumaru.

"So where are you taking us?"

Sesshoumaru kept his eyes on the road as he answered, his face set, expression guarded in the faint light emitted from the truck's dashboard instruments.

"Oregon."

Kagura bristled. "I did not sign up for a road trip," she hissed.

Getting to Oregon involved crossing at least two state lines with a man who'd seen her at her worst. A man who, Kagura realized, she couldn't manipulate the way she usually did her barstool confidants. Kagura liked being in control; she thrived on it. She was one of the best insurance claims investigators in the state because of it.

Taking a breath, she forced her body to relax and changed her tone to one of sweetly reasonable logic.

"Why not drop us off at the nearest police station?" she asked. "Then we'll all be out of your hair, Raku included. Aren't you some kind of cop yourself?"

"Bounty hunter," Sesshoumaru corrected tersely.

Kagura blinked. Bounty hunters weren't like cops. They didn't need warrants, and rumor had it they used questionably legal means to capture the criminals they brought in for reward money. The questionable legality didn't bother Kagura; much of what she did would be considered entrapment if she were part of the legal system instead of employed by an insurance company. However, unlike cops, bounty hunters couldn't be trusted to do the expected. Kagura liked being able to predict how men would react given their background, training, and social setting. She'd just been dealt a wild card.

"I think you'd want to get Raku off your hands as quickly as possible then," she said, keeping her voice even.

"Local cops tend to take the home boy's side of things," Sesshoumaru told her. "Raku's going back to Oregon to stand trial."

Kagura sensed there was something else Sesshoumaru wasn't telling her, but the finality in his voice kept her from asking or arguing. Oregon it was.

o-o-o

Somewhere around 10:00 the snow started falling. Winter was hitting at last, after an unusually long autumn. Sesshoumaru glanced over at the woman to see if she'd noticed, but her eyes were closed and her head tilted at an angle over the blonde child nestled against her side. She was asleep.

He drove on down highway 94 through the night. Taking the 94 meant crossing through Montana, the state he'd once thought of as home. He didn't want to go there, but it was the quickest way to get from North Dakota, where Raku's cabin was, to Oregon. He'd avoided bounty jobs in Montana since leaving home. As he crossed the state line, his gut clenched as he saw the Montana sign, surprising him.

The woman stirred and sat up.

"What time is it?" she asked, voice low and husky with sleep.

"About midnight."

She blinked and stared out the windshield. "How can you drive in this?"

The snow was pelting down steadily, but the truck's wipers were keeping up. Sesshoumaru saw it as a rhetorical question and didn't bother to reply.

"Tough guy, eh?"

Sesshoumaru continued to drive in silence.

The woman sighed. "You may be tough, but some of the rest of us would like to use the bathroom and get a decent night's sleep."

Sighing inwardly, Sesshoumaru regarded the snow coated road ahead of him. Kagura wasn't a prisoner, but a passenger. There was a kid involved too.

"We'll stop at the next town," he told her grudgingly. It would actually be safer to drive after the snow stopped and the snowplows had their way with the highway.

A quick glance revealed a slight smile playing across the woman's lips, not enough to be called a triumphant smirk, but enough to show she felt she'd won that round.

Sesshoumaru placed his eyes firmly back on the road. This was why he didn't like carrying women. Everything was a game to them. Women prisoners cried to get sympathy, raged against men in general and him in particular, or tried to seduce him in order to escape. He'd learned over the years to steel himself against their tricks. Tears and soft seductive offers didn't work on him, and he let the insults slide off without taking it personally.

This woman was different though. She was tough, a fighter. She didn't strike him as being the maternal type, yet she'd fought to keep the kid with her instead of leaving the little freak behind. He couldn't quite figure her out, and it bothered him.

The next town had a small strip mall with a gas station, liquor store, motel, and all-night diner near the highway. While Sesshoumaru hired a room with two double beds from a sleepy eyed clerk, Kagura and Kanna waited in the truck. Driving around to the back side of the motel, he opened the motel room door and let them in, telling them to use the bathroom fast if they needed it, then returned to the trailer to get Raku.

"How's my daughter?"

It was the first question out of Raku's mouth when Sesshoumaru opened the toilet cabinet and unshackled his ankles from the steel rings set on either side of the toilet. From the smell, Raku had used the toilet recently. Sesshoumaru found the smell preferable to the insinuation in Raku's next words.

"Was she…good for you?"

He undid the handcuffs from the iron bar running down the side of the cabinet and slammed Raku against the wall more forcefully than necessary as he re-secured the cuffs behind the man's back.

Raku just grunted on the impact and chuckled.

Sesshoumaru didn't mind roughing up a criminal when the situation called for it. He'd had to knock a few unconscious in order to cuff them, but once they were in cuffs he drew the line at punching them just for the hell of it. A sleaze like Raku wasn't about to make him break that rule. However, that didn't mean that he had to treat the man with kid gloves.

He opened a drawer and snagged a roll of tape from it, then drew his gun and placed the barrel against Raku's back, marching him out of the trailer and directly to the open motel room door.

Kagura and Kanna sat on one of the beds, Kagura's arm around the child, and watched with unreadable expressions as Sesshoumaru pushed Raku into the motel room's small bathroom and cuffed him to the metal plumbing fixtures under the sink.

Raku sat on the floor with an aggrieved expression as Sesshoumaru walked out.

"Hey, what am I supposed to do for…" he began, only to be cut off as Sesshoumaru pulled the coverlet and one pillow from the bed nearest him and threw them through the bathroom door at his prisoner.

Glancing back he saw Raku's eyes fix on Kanna.

"Hey baby girl," he greeted his daughter. There was a glint in his eye that bothered Sesshoumaru.

He moved to stand in the bathroom doorway, blocking Raku's view of the child even as he sensed Kagura turning Kanna's shoulders and enveloping the little girl in her arms to shield her from the sight of her father. It seemed he and Kagura had the same goal, though likely for different reasons.

Taking the roll of tape out of his pocket, Sesshoumaru ripped off a wide piece and slapped it across Raku's mouth. The man's eyes bulged out in cold fury. Sesshoumaru flipped off the bathroom light and closed the door. He didn't need Raku communicating with his daughter during the night.

He slipped the tape back in his pocket, assessing the sparse furnishings. Aside from the two double beds with a bedside table separating them, there was a round table and two chairs by the window and a low dresser with a TV on it by the wall next to the bathroom doorway. It'd do.

Sesshoumaru bent and unplugged the TV, then shoved the dresser in front of the bathroom door. There was no way Kanna would be able to get to her father through that without Sesshoumaru hearing her. He'd also be sleeping with his gun under his pillow too, just in case.

He turned to find Kagura watching him, realization dawning in her eyes. Sesshoumaru could practically see the wheels turning as she figured out that he'd blocked the father's sight of the daughter to prevent them from communicating an escape plan, and not to protect Kanna from her father's words. To her credit, she didn't lash out at him, or accuse him of being unfair to the little girl. She just tightened her arm around the child and glared.

"The kid needs to eat," she said.

Sesshoumaru nodded.

"The diner's open twenty four hours," he told her, nodding towards the motel room door. He took his wallet out of his pocket and pulled out a few twenties.

"Get whatever you and the girl need," he said, handing her the money.

"What about you?" she asked, fixing him with those strange amber eyes of hers challengingly.

"I'll go next."

If it was just him, he'd be eating drive-through takeout, snagged on the way to the motel so he wouldn't have to leave the prisoner alone. Even shackled to plumbing, prisoners could cause problems. He'd known them to yell and scream, claiming to motel managers and guests that Sesshoumaru had kidnapped them. One time he'd had to recapture an arsonist that a motel manager had 'rescued'.

"Forget that," Kagura told him, eyes narrowed. "I'll get takeout and bring it back. What do you want?"

Sesshoumaru blinked. He thought Kagura would welcome a chance to be away from him longer. People didn't exactly find him friendly.

"Steak."

Montana was cow country. Even roadside diners found it difficult to screw up good beef.

She nodded, tied his trench coat belt securely at her waist, and walked out the motel room door, leaving him alone in the room with the kid.

o-o-o

Kagura bought herself and the kid burgers and fries. Seshoumaru got his steak and she made an executive decision and got him a baked potato and green beans for his side dishes. Now then, what to drink?

"Two iced teas with lemon and one seven-up," she told the waitress at the counter.

"Will that be all?"

"Yes," Kagura smiled. That would be all, with a little addition that neither the waitress nor Sesshoumaru needed to know about. "How long will it be?"

"Ten, fifteen minutes?" The waitress waved her hand indecisively.

"Perfect," Kagura said, handing over the money. "I'll be back in ten minutes to pick it up."

Sesshoumaru's iced tea was about to become the Long Island variety.

She returned from the all night liquor store on the corner just as the order came up. Perfect timing. It was a good sign.

She hummed as she walked across the parking lot to the motel.

"I'm back," she announced unnecessarily as Sesshoumaru opened the door to her knock and stepped back to let her in.

She noticed him slip his gun back into its holster as soon as the door was closed. Kanna sat on the coverlet-less bed, watching TV, not acknowledging Kagura's presence.

Kagura doubted Kanna lived much in the real world anyway, so she didn't take it personally. Who could blame the kid for wanting to stay in her own little world when her life sucked as badly as it did?

She set the food on the table, and frowned over the fact that there were only two chairs, but set the Styrofoam containers out on it anyhow and opened the lids. Sesshoumaru grabbed one of the containers with the burger and fries and set it on the bed next to Kanna.

"Eat."

Kanna didn't take her eyes off the TV, but she did reach out with one hand to take a French fry and place it in her mouth. Satisfied, Sesshoumaru turned back to the table.

"I got you iced tea, I hope you don't mind." Kagura held out the paper cup of seven-up and nodded towards Kanna. Sesshoumaru took it and set it on the floor by the child's feet.

With a crinkle of brown paper, Kagura brought out a bottle of vodka from the liquor store.

"I got something for after dinner too," she told him, and set it on the table.

His eyes flicked to the bottle then back to her face.

"I don't drink on the job."

Kagura shrugged. "Suit yourself, iced tea is your only other choice."

She sat down at one of the chairs and began sucking on the straw in her paper cup, and pushed his iced tea closer to his Styrofoam container of steak dinner.

He sat down and began to eat.

She let him eat and drink in silence, waiting until the level of spiked iced tea in his cup reached the half way mark before starting her questions. This was a game she played often. Loosen them up with the inconsequential, agree with all their opinions, and then when they were drunk enough, slip in the harder questions.

Kagura knew how to get drunks to open up. She practically made a living out of it. Brothers, best friends, lovers, anyone the claimant may have confided in were fair game. Once she knew how the claimant was scamming the insurance company it was easy to prove it.

By the end of the steak, she'd convinced Sesshoumaru that he needed a nightcap and poured a healthy dose of vodka in his iced tea, adding to the alcohol she'd already put in it. Sticking her thumb over the opening in the bottle, she pretended to pour some into her own cup as well.

Sesshoumaru was a morose drunk. He became owlish rather than giddy. Kagura compensated by pouring on the sympathy. It wasn't difficult to fake once he started in on the story of his early life and the ranch. By the time he passed out on the table, she'd learned everything there was to know about why he hated being in Montana.

Sighing, she screwed the cap back on the vodka bottle and dropped it in the trash. Usually once she got her information she'd leave the drunk in the bar for someone else to deal with. This time she was stuck with him.

Leaning back in her chair she stared at him. Face pillowed on his arm, his facial expression was softer than she'd ever seen it. Awake, Sesshoumaru was always tense, always wary. He exuded a cold 'touch me not' aura that intimidated even her, and Kagura wasn't one to let men intimidate her. Asleep, however…

On a whim, she moved forward in her chair and brushed his hair away from his forehead. It was smooth to the touch, like silk. The roots were white-blonde as well, while his eyelashes were black as soot. It was a combination any starlet would kill for and he got it naturally.

Kagura pulled her hand back angrily. What was she doing? Admiring the guy? So what if he was drop dead gorgeous? He had the personality of a porcupine, and after he dropped them off in Oregon she'd probably never see him again. She'd never know what happened to his ranch, or his brother. If he didn't care about them anymore, why should she? No one really cared about anyone after all. Everyone she met was out for number one and the rest of the world could go to hell.

Standing, Kagura glanced over and saw that Kanna was asleep on the fuzzy motel blanket, the late night variety hour type show on the TV blaring on relentlessly. Sesshoumaru's black cowboy hat lay on the single pillow of that bed, showing he'd staked it out for himself. She'd have to shift the girl to the other bed, the one with two pillows.

Wait.

There was something already on that bed.

Kagura walked over to the bedside table and switched on the reading lamp. On one pillow lay a plain white tee shirt with a cellophane wrapped toothbrush. On the other was another new toothbrush with a set of men's pajamas and a wine colored long sleeved tee shirt peeking out from beneath it. The color was almost a perfect match to her ruined blouse.

She turned back to the table and glared at the back of Sesshoumaru's head.

Maybe he did care a little. Perfect. Every time she thought she had him pegged he pulled something unexpected. Now she'd have to get him to bed instead of leaving him at the table.

Grumbling under her breath, Kagura set about tucking Kanna into bed before tackling the job of coaxing a large inebriated bounty hunter over to the other mattress.

Some days it just didn't pay to get up in the morning.


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

Pain spiked through Sesshoumaru's head when he opened his eyes a crack the next morning. His mouth was dry with an unmistakable taste that said 'hangover'. He didn't like getting drunk for that very reason. So why had he?

He shut his eyes again and concentrated. He remembered Kagura, offering him some vodka, pouring it into his cup. After that things got blurry.

The bed felt odd, lumpy. He was lying on his stomach, something he rarely did. Sesshoumaru preferred to sleep on his back, ready to roll to his feet in case of danger.

He seemed to be half on, half off the pillow too, with his cheekbone and ear on the fabric, but his chin on something a bit harder. Cracking his eyes open again he saw dark hair, an ear attached to a pale white neck, and realized they belonged to Kagura. His chin was resting on her shoulder.

Her head was fully on the pillow and she was lying on her back underneath him. His shoulders, torso and hips were pinning her firmly to the mattress, one of his legs between hers. His arms were circled around her head, and when he moved his fingers experimentally, he found them tangled in her hair, as if he'd grabbed her by it.

The pull on her hair woke her and she stirred underneath him, the movement causing interesting sensations in him. He untangled his fingers from her hair and used his arms to lift his upper body off of her as her eyes opened.

She woke completely and stared back at him without the bleary sleepiness she'd shown when she woke in the truck on the way to the motel.

"Sleep well?" she asked with arch politeness.

Sesshoumaru grunted. He was a near blackout drunk. When he got blitzed, he remembered next to nothing the following day. It was why he avoided booze, preferring to stay in control.

He hadn't had sex with her; that was obvious from both their clothed states and from her sarcastic tone. Relieved, he pulled back and sat on his haunches, straddled over one of her legs, weight distributed on the top of his stocking clad feet. She propped herself up on her elbows and quirked an eyebrow at him, that ridiculous magenta bra distracting him.

He vaguely remembered tackling someone who was going after his gun. It was a dreamlike memory, and he remembered too grabbing someone by the hair who was trying to wriggle away from him.

"I was drunk."

"I know."

"What happened?"

"About what you'd expect."

Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes. His head was pounding and he was most definitely not in the mood to bandy words with the woman who'd got him drunk. He glared and waited.

Eventually she shrugged and lay back down, staring up at the ceiling contemplatively as she spoke.

"I was putting you to bed. I got your boots off OK, loosened your shirt, and I was just about to get your holster off when you freaked out and pinned me to the bed. Then, when I tried to get out from under you, you pulled my hair and passed out on me."

It fit with what he remembered.

"Sorry," he muttered, and rolled off the bed to stand between the two beds.

As he straightened, he saw Kanna sitting up in the other bed in his several-sizes-too-large tee shirt, watching them. He nodded to her cordially, only wincing a little as the movement exacerbated his hangover. He hated getting drunk. It knocked him off kilter. He rarely apologized for anything.

"Don't mention it," came Kagura's amused voice. "It wasn't my idea of a dream date, but I've had worse."

Sesshoumaru stalked over to the bathroom to transfer Raku back to the trailer. Did the woman have to make a joke out of everything? Her type of dark humor was unnerving. There wasn't much that was funny about bounty hunting.

He waited until Raku was re-shackled into the toilet cabinet of the trailer before ripping the tape off his mouth. Predictably, Raku began swearing at the sting of the adhesive's removal. Sesshoumaru shut the door on him, mid-tirade, and locked it.

When he got back to the motel room the beds were empty and the sound of running water came from the bathroom. Lots of running water, not like water from the sink. He frowned as Kagura stuck her head around the bathroom door.

"Kanna's having a bath, and I'll be taking a shower afterwards so you'll have to wait," she told him.

Sesshoumaru grunted. Taking that as consent, the woman pulled back into the bathroom and shut the door. With nothing better to do, he walked back to the trailer to use the small original toilet compartment and grab some aspirin. When he got back to the room Kanna was sitting on the bed nearest the bathroom in her white dress with a towel wrapped turban-like on her head.

"Oh good, you're back." Kagura said, peeking out of the bathroom.

She gestured to him around the bathroom door with a bare arm. "If you've got a hairdryer and brush in that trailer of yours, you'd better go get them. Kanna has a lot of hair." She flashed him a mischievous grin and disappeared again.

Sesshoumaru looked down at the little white haired girl staring at the bathroom door, then sighed and went to do as Kagura asked.

By the time Kagura pronounced the female contingent ready to go it was already midmorning and the snow was beginning to fall again. Refusing to stop off at the diner, Sesshoumaru found a McDonalds and parked in the lot so he could feed Raku an egg Mcmuffin and juice before driving on.

Instead of getting better, his headache seemed to keep getting worse. He hadn't been drunk in a long time. An hour or so after breakfast, Kagura began pestering him.

"Sesshoumaru, you look horrible," she told him frankly.

He ignored her.

"If you keep this up you'll fall asleep at the wheel."

He didn't dignify that with a response. He was more likely to succumb to the nausea swirling in his stomach from the scent of the food still wafting around the truck cab than he was to pass out. Skipping breakfast had been a necessity for him.

"Please, let me drive."

She put her hand on his arm. The last time she'd done that he'd dealt with it with just one look. This time it didn't work. The woman stared back calmly, and he'd had to wrench his gaze back to the road ahead for safety's sake.

"Please," she said again, squeezing his arm gently. It wasn't a seductive touch. Sesshoumaru was used to ignoring those. This one seemed sincere, genuine. He didn't trust it.

"I can drive," he told her coldly.

Dropping her hand reluctantly, she sighed.

"I know that, but I can drive just as easily, and you look like you need sleep more than I do."

Sesshoumaru stayed silent, considering.

"Look," she interrupted his thoughts brazenly. "I can read a map, and it's not like I haven't driven through Montana before. Highway 94 becomes the 90 then we switch over to the 15 to get through Idaho, right? I can handle that. If you want, I'll wake you when we get to Idaho and you can take over, OK?"

Sesshoumaru nodded grudgingly. The further he got into Montana, the more familiar it became. He'd just as soon be asleep when they passed the off ramp of the road that led to his ranch.

Pulling off the side of the highway, he opened the driver's side door and walked around the front of the truck to the other side. Kagura and Kanna obligingly scooted over as he got back inside, opened the glove compartment and handed her a roadmap.

Kagura scanned it carefully, and folded it so it would fit on the dashboard within easy reach. Reassured, Sesshoumaru leaned back and tilted his hat over his eyes.

"Wake me if the snow gets worse," he told her, and settled in to sleep.

o-o-o

Kagura smiled triumphantly. Step one of her plan was now complete. They weren't expecting her back at work for several days. She'd cut her vacation short and was coming in a week early to see if there were any interesting new assignments when Raku kidnapped her. The man seemed to have preternatural luck. No one would've known she was dead for at least another week before they started looking for her. She'd been given a second chance at life, and she intended to use it in the most interesting way possible.

She was having to re-examine a lot of her ideas.

She thought she was smart and savvy, not the sort of woman to become a victim, yet she'd been kidnapped and nearly raped and killed.

She thought Sesshoumaru was a cold-hearted bastard who didn't care about anything except getting his reward money. Then he went back for Kanna, and loaned her his coat and the shirt she was wearing now.

She thought she despised the man. Lying beneath him in the bed, once the initial shock of being tackled to the mattress wore off, feelings shifted and changed. She'd never actually slept through the night with a man before, sharing the warmth of his body. Her physical relationships were short-lived. Date raped at fourteen, she'd been wary of men since then. She always broke things off before they got too serious. She could count on one hand the number of men she'd been with.

Sometimes she wished she were a slut, because it was easier to sleep your way to the top than earn promotions the old fashioned way through hard work. Her pride always stepped in and prevented her from taking the easy way out. Kagura wasn't about to say that she owed her success to some man.

It was something she had in common with Sesshoumaru. He refused to accept charity from his mother. He walked away from something it took him seven years to build. You had to admire that kind of integrity even while you cursed him for being such a fool.

In vino veritas.

Truth in wine, in drunkenness.

Kagura knew from first hand experience that secrets had a way of slipping out in drunken confidences. Sesshoumaru missed his brother. He hadn't said it in so many words, but she knew it.

It was time for a family reunion. After all, it was nearly Christmas. She shot a glance at Sesshoumaru.

'Think of it as an early Christmas present' she thought at him silently. 'Assuming we make it through this snow.'

She frowned out at the white flakes falling to the asphalt in front of the car. Now where was that turn off? Sesshoumaru had said the ranch was a two-hour drive past Running Creek. Cursing softly, she grabbed the map again.

o-o-o

The truck came to a stop, jerking Sesshoumaru awake. He opened his eyes and stared out the window at his ranch house.

His first thought was that someone had screwed with his dream. He often dreamed of the ranch in that disjointed way dreams had of depositing your dreaming self in a place you'd been before.

This ranch house was covered in snow. It blanketed the bushes that lined the porch, and hanging from the eaves were baskets of plants, showing the dead brown stalks of winter.

He distinctly remembered telling Yura, his interior designer, not to put plants anywhere near his porch. So why had his subconscious mind stuck them there?

Blinking, Sesshoumaru realized that this wasn't a dream. He turned to find Kagura and Kanna staring at him.

Fury coursed through him.

"Give me the keys," he demanded, attempting and failing to keep his voice dispassionate.

The child, Kanna, shivered a little, but Kagura simply grinned and pulled the keys out of the ignition.

Pulling the crewneck of her borrowed top away from her throat, she reached down inside and tucked the keys into her bra before pulling her hand back and crossing her arms firmly across her chest.

"Come and get them if you want them so bad," she invited, then opened the door and got out of the truck, walking around to the front to stare at him through the windshield.

Sesshoumaru smoldered, literally feeling the heat of anger rising off his body. Wrenching open his own door, he strode deliberately around the hood to confront her. He'd never hit a woman in anger in his life, but he was tempted to now.

At that moment the ranch house door slammed open, distracting them both.

Inuyasha ran out onto the porch, skidding to a stop at the top of the steps leading to the driveway, before stepping half way down them. Sesshoumaru was gratified to note that he carried a shotgun in his hands. It seemed his baby brother remembered some of the basic safety measures he'd drummed into him all those years ago. However, he was still breaking one very important rule, allowing a stranger to come up behind him.

In the doorway of the ranch house stood a girl in a white turtleneck sweater with green pants and a green scarf tied in a knot at her collarbone. She had long dark hair, and was gazing with concern at Inuyasha's back. Sesshoumaru dismissed the girl as not much of a threat.

When Sesshoumaru turned to look at him, Inuyasha nearly dropped the shotgun. He stood open-mouthed in shock for a second, before excitement and joy took over.

"Sesshoumaru! You're back! I can't believe it!" Then the laughter faded and ill temper clamped down on the kid's face. "Keh, took you long enough to come home," he finished resentfully.

Sesshoumaru stared at him through the falling snowflakes. His brother was older, but no taller. His reaction proved that he hadn't changed much either, still apt to lead with his emotions.

"I'm not," Sesshoumaru informed him, aware of Kagura watching and listening avidly.

"Not what?" asked his brother, puzzled.

"Not coming home."

Inuyasha's face fell. "Like that, is it? Then why are you here? Who needs you anyhow?"

He turned and stomped up the steps to the porch, turning his back on Sesshoumaru.

It was the girl who stopped him. Marching to the edge of the porch, she met Inuyasha at the top of the steps and poked a finger in his chest.

"Inuyasha, you stop it right now," she yelled. "All you ever talk about is your brother and this is how you treat him when he finally comes back?"

Brushing by him, the girl skipped down the steps past Inuyasha, bypassing his abortive grab to stop her with the ease of familiarity. She stopped in front of Sesshoumaru, her breath coming out in little puffs in the cold, her cheeks rosy with it.

"I'm sorry about Inuyasha. I'm Kagome. Please, come in."

Sesshoumaru looked down at the stranger inviting him into the house he'd built. Her face was open, expectant.

"No."

Disappointment clouded the girl's eyes. She opened her mouth to reply, but Kagura forestalled her.

"Of course we will," the dark haired witch told the girl, pulling Kanna out of the truck cab and depositing the child on her hip.

She walked up to Sesshoumaru and Kagome and smiled.

"And so will Sesshoumaru, if he ever wants his keys back," she said, and walked on past them to the steps.

"Um," Kagome began then shrugged helplessly, obviously not sure what to say to Kagura's unusual manner.

For a second, Sesshoumaru considered ripping the keys out of the woman's bra, then dismissed the thought. She was carrying the kid for one thing, and for another it was beneath his dignity to manhandle the woman.

A banging noise came faintly from the trailer. Kagome jumped.

"Just ignore it," Sesshoumaru told her, and followed Kagura to the steps. With a curious look towards the trailer, Kagome followed them into the house.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Thanks so much to my anonymous reviewers. If you ever want a review response, just leave me a signed review. Your comments are always much appreciated.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Dinner was stilted and uncomfortable. Kagome and Kagura carried the conversation with Sesshoumaru and his brother answering questions in monosyllables when asked to participate. Kanna didn't speak at all.

Sesshoumaru found out that his little brother and Kagome were engaged to be married.

"We're not sleeping together!" Kagome was quick to assure Sesshoumaru. "I'm staying in the study, on the foldout bed. It's just for Christmas break, then I'm going back to my own place in town. I've got one more semester of college to go before we can get married."

Sesshoumaru wondered why she was bothering to tell him that when he didn't care what his brother did anymore. He kept his face impassive, unlike his brother who glowered but managed to keep his mouth shut.

"What I mean is," Kagome blundered on, "your room is still available for you, and…Kagura?"

Sesshoumaru saw that Kagura's cheeks turned slightly pink as she answered. Interesting.

"If it's OK with you, Kagome, I'll stay in the study with you."

"Why don't we just put her in the…ow!" His little brother's suggestion was lost when Kagome very obviously kicked him under the table. "What was that for?" he asked, aggrieved.

"Inuyasha, will you come help me in the kitchen with dessert?" Kagome asked him sweetly.

"Keh," Inuyasha puffed, but shoved his chair back and followed his girlfriend into the kitchen.

"Since when do you serve dessert?" he muttered.

Sesshoumaru stared across the table at Kagura. She pushed the remains of her sphaghetti around her plate. In the course of her conversation with Kagome he'd learned that she was an insurance claims investigator, that she hated her boss, but loved her job, and traveled so much that she couldn't have pets or live plants in her apartment. Her parents were both dead and she had no siblings.

He'd learned that Kagome was a college senior, who'd lived with her mother, grandpa, and little brother until moving out to a college apartment. Souta, her little brother, had a part time summer job on the ranch, which was how Inuyasha and Kagome met.

Kagura's motions with her fork became more and more agitated the longer they remained alone at the table with Kanna, yet she refused to meet his gaze.

"There's a sleeping bag for Kanna in the garage," he said at last. The garage was where the camping gear was stored. He couldn't imagine Inuyasha bothering to clean out the garage since he'd left.

She looked up at that. "What?"

"She can sleep in the study with you."

Her mouth opened to reply, but at that moment Kagome and a cowed Inuyasha came back to the table bearing oreo cookies on a plate.

"Sorry they're not home-baked, I've got a pie, but I'm saving it for tomorrow." Kagome offered.

"Tomorrow?" Kagura asked.

"It's Christmas Eve," said Kagome simply.

"Oh, right. I'd forgotten."

Inuyasha stared at her. "How could you forget Christmas? Ow!"

Everyone looked at Kagome, who smiled sweetly. "Oreo, anyone?"

After dinner the women all went to the kitchen, and Inuyasha was sent to show Sesshoumaru the improvements he'd made to the house.

Sesshoumaru stayed quiet through the tour of the enlarged garage and the new deck out back with a circular Jacuzzi, its fiberglass cover blanketed with snow. Next to the garage was a new door which Inuyasha dismissed as a storage area. Through the hall windows, Sesshoumaru saw that the storage room sported French doors opening onto the narrow backyard. It was a curious thing to put in a storage room, and also a security risk. French doors were easy to jimmy open.

However, it wasn't his business anymore what Inuyasha did to the house. Inuyasha led him outside to look at the gardening shed by the garage.

The snow was still falling as they stood outside looking at the padlocked structure.

"See, it's got a lock on it. You always said outbuildings should have locks."

Puppy-like, Inuyasha looked to him for approval. When it didn't come, he became petulant.

"Geez, what'll it take to impress you?" he asked, kicking the snow at his feet.

Sesshoumaru looked at his brother.

"Why are you still here?"

"I live here, remember?" Inuyasha said belligerently. "You put my name on the deed. When you left I had to stay to run the place, didn't I?"

"As you said, your name is on the deed," Sesshoumaru affirmed. "So why not sell the place and become…an actor wasn't it?"

He still remembered the long drive to the high school to pick up his brother from drama practice, barely able to keep his eyes open after a long hard day of work on the ranch. Back in those days Sesshoumaru believed in hands on management, and did the same work as his ranch hands. The drive was an extension to an already long day.

Inuyasha scowled down at the snow at his feet and mumbled something.

"What?" asked Sesshoumaru impatiently.

"I said Kagome likes llamas!" Inuyasha shouted. "She likes llamas and she said if I went away and became an actor I'd forget all about her and all our friends and become a jerk so I decided to stay and raise llamas, OK?"

Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow. This Kagome was smarter than she looked.

Inuyasha became defensive. "Look, if you want your half of the ranch back…"

"Keep it," Sesshoumaru told him grimly. "I want nothing that comes from our mother."

Inuyasha clenched his fists and looked away. "She's not that bad," he muttered. He straightened and looked Sesshoumaru in the eye. "In fact, she's…"

Sesshoumaru glared. She's what? He asked mentally. She's not the whorish drunk who dumped us when you were a baby?

Inuyasha wilted visibly before his glare and turned back towards the house. He took a step then halted, turning his head to talk over his shoulder. "If you just give me a few more years I'll have enough money to buy you out."

"As far as I'm concerned, this place was never mine. It was bought with our mother's money. It belongs to her."

Sesshoumaru left his brother staring after him and went to go check on Raku.

o-o-o

Morning came and Sesshoumaru woke to find himself staring at a ceiling he hadn't seen in years. His room was exactly the way it was when he'd left.

He wasn't sure how to feel about that.

From the snores emanating from his adjoining bathroom, Raku was still asleep, so Sesshoumaru dressed and went downstairs.

Kagome was already awake and bustling quietly around the kitchen. He watched her from the foot of the stairs. She was carefully pulling pots and pans out of the lower cabinets to avoid clanking them together. The smell of coffee permeated the kitchen.

It came from the new coffeemaker on the far counter. No, it wasn't just a coffeemaker, it was a combination coffeemaker and cappuccino machine.

The girl's idea, of course. Inuyasha could barely program the VCR when Sesshoumaru left.

"Oh, Sesshoumaru." Kagome greeted him, noticing him at last. She set a frying pan down gently on the stove and spoke softly.

"I thought I'd make scrambled eggs for breakfast. I just hope we have enough eggs," she confided cheerfully.

"Coffee?"

"Oh, of course! I'll just get you a…"

Kagome trailed off as Sesshoumaru walked past her, opened the upper cabinet and took down a mug. It was an unfamiliar one, bought in the years since he'd left, but it'd do. Without a word he poured himself a cup and leaned against the counter by the refrigerator.

The girl watched him, smiling uncertainly, then shook herself and went over to the fruitbowl and began cutting up oranges.

"Hey Kagome, what's for breakfast?"

Inuyasha's voice preceded the pounding of his feet as he tore down the stairs. He stopped short as he noticed his brother, and plastered a scowl on his face.

"Inuyasha! Be quieter, you'll wake the others!" Kagome admonished.

"Keh," he muttered and went into the other room to turn on the TV.

Sesshoumaru shifted against the countertop, allowing his eyes to follow his brother into the living area. Not much had changed there either. A couch had been replaced and was now a darker brown than the original leather one. Christmas garlands festooned the doorway and the mantelpiece of the fireplace, and there was a small Christmas tree in the corner where a side table used to be. The TV and sound system were a newer brand, top of the line too. Sesshoumaru wondered how long it'd taken Inuyasha to waste ranch money on it after he'd left.

Kagura came downstairs next, holding Kanna's hand. The little girl wore the same white dress, but Kagura was wearing jeans and a red and white pullover she must have borrowed from Kagome. Fuzzy white bedroom slippers completed the outfit. Evidently Kagome and Kagura's shoe sizes were too diverse for borrowing and only the looser slippers fit her.

"Good morning, Kagura, Kanna," Kagome's voice sang out. "Did you sleep well?"

"Well enough," answered Kagura. "Is that coffee I smell?"

"Sure is, you want a cup?"

"The biggest one you've got."

Kagome grinned.

"Coming right up!" she said and went over to the cabinet to retrieve a mug.

Kagura released Kanna's hand when they reached the foot of the stairs and made her way into the kitchen, pausing a second as she noticed Sesshoumaru leaning against the counter. She gave him a look mixed with challenge and greeting, then turned her back to accept the steaming mug Kagome held out to her.

The dark haired woman stared lovingly into the cup for a moment, inhaling the scent, then asked, "Got any cream?"

"No, but we've got milk, it's in the refrigerator. I'll get it,"

"No," Kagura raised a hand to stop the ever-helpful girl. "I'll do it."

Setting the mug carefully down by the stove, she walked up to Sesshoumaru, hips swaying slightly and eyes alight with mischief.

"You mind moving? I wouldn't want the door to knock you on your ass," she said, laying her hand on the refrigerator's door handle.

Sesshoumaru stared down at her silently, then pushed off from the counter. Unfortunately, Kagura chose that exact same moment to pull on the refrigerator door, causing her to step backward and onto his foot as he moved his leg to step away from the counter. Somehow he ended up with his hips against the counter, one hand holding his mug aloft to keep it from being knocked out of his hand, and the other around Kagura's back, pressing her against his chest to keep her from falling as she tripped on his foot.

There was a moment of awkward fumbling as the woman regained her footing, then they righted themselves and Kagura stepped back to allow him past with a muttered apology.

Sesshoumaru figured it was time to leave the kitchen when Kagome's stifled giggles reached his ears. He gave Kagura a scathing look, and walked away.

Kanna stood in the open area between the foot of the stairs and the living room, exactly where Kagura left her. She was staring out the window near the front door, arms at her sides, seemingly mesmerized by the falling snow.

Sesshoumaru walked a slow half circle around the girl, contemplating her. The kid was definitely not normal. He'd seen his share of abused kids in the foster homes. He knew bed-wetters, kids who woke with screaming nightmares, kids who lost it when touched unexpectedly, but he'd never seen a kid so carefully blank before. She was eerie.

She didn't seem aware of Sesshoumaru's presence, or at least she didn't give any indication of it. The way she stood, so still, so unmoving, had more in common with a statue than a living, breathing child.

Then she did move. Her arm raised slowly, and she pointed out the window.

He looked and saw headlights coming up the drive.

Cursing inwardly, he set his coffee cup down roughly on a bookcase and drew his gun, moving swiftly to the wall by the window, flattening himself against the wallpaper so as not to present an obvious target.

The car stopped. Doors opened and closed. Inuyasha heard them over the low drone of the TV and came into the hall, stopping short when he saw his brother, gun drawn, gazing sideways out the window.

"What the…?"

"Are you expecting anyone?" Sesshoumaru questioned softly.

Inuyasha crossed his arms. "Who're you expecting? Jesse James?" he asked snidely.

Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes. He didn't think Raku had any accomplices, and he knew he hadn't been followed from Raku's cabin to the motel, but he hadn't been awake when Kagura was driving. His hand tightened on his gun and he shifted his gaze back to the window. Two people exited the car, bundled up against the snow.

"Oh for crying out loud," Inuyasha stomped past Sesshoumaru, ignoring his hiss of warning, and pulled open the front door.

"It's mom, so put your gun away," he ordered disgustedly.

Sesshoumaru felt his gut tighten. With an effort he lowered his weapon and holstered it, stepping back from the window as Bixler and his wife strode in, shaking snow off their hats and beginning to undo their coat buttons.

"Good lord, it's cold out there," Bixler said as he came through the door. "Hello there, Inuyasha. Merry Christmas."

His voice was the same, friendlier than Sesshoumaru remembered it, but then he'd only known the man in a professional capacity.

"Hello, darling."

The woman's voice was soft, almost musical as she greeted her son. She held out her cheek for Inuyasha to kiss, while her hands tangled in her scarf, trying to get at the coat buttons underneath.

Inuyasha bent forward and planted an awkward kiss on her cheek, while glancing out of the corner of his eye at Sesshoumaru.

Sesshoumaru expected her to look at him then, to notice that Inuyasha's attention wasn't solely on her, but something else caught her eye first.

"My goodness, who is this?" she asked, and stepped forward to crouch down in front of Kanna.

"She's adorable. Who is she?"

She looked over at Inuyasha and saw Sesshoumaru at last. Her eyes widened and she rose slowly, Kanna forgotten.

Bixler, coat in hand, saw his wife's face and also turned to see what she was looking at.

"Sesshoumaru?" she said his name hesitantly, as if tasting something that could burn her mouth.

He wouldn't scorch her. How could he? He was ice inside, hard and frozen with no warmth left in him. He stared back at her. There were a few more wrinkles around her eyes, but her hair and face were the same as the last time he'd seen her. She wore a pink scarf and hat, the same shade of pink she'd worn that day outside the bank. Nothing had changed except him.

Surprisingly, he felt no anger. He felt nothing. She was nothing to him.

Bixler started to speak, then stopped himself.

His wife continued. "Son? You're home?"

He watched dispassionately as hope took hold in his mother's eyes. She gestured towards Kanna.

"Is this your daughter?"

Ice broke, and rage hit. Did she think he went around creating bastards as easily as she had?

Wrenching his gaze away from his mother he looked around at the spectators to their little reunion. Bixler was holding his coat like he couldn't figure out what to do with it, shocked and uncomfortable. Inuyasha was cringing in embarrassment at his mother's question, as Kanna stood blankly in the hall, Kagura and Kagome watching from the kitchen entrance.

His gaze sharpened on Kagura. "Bring the keys, we're going. Now."

The woman crossed her arms and lifted her chin. "No."

"Fine," he said evenly. He could always hotwire his truck and have a spare key made in the next town. "I'm taking Raku. Do what you like."

"I don't think you'll be taking him anywhere." Kagura's voice hardened and she lifted a hand. From it dangled the glint of metal.

Sesshoumaru didn't have to pat his pocket to realize that his handcuff keys were gone. That awkward fumbling by the refrigerator should've tipped him off, but he'd been distracted by the feel of her body pressed up against his, too distracted and preoccupied with catching her to realize she'd lifted the keys out of his pocket.

"Son,"

His mother's pleading voice followed him as he turned his back and walked out the front door.

Without the keys he'd need a blowtorch to get through the bathtub pipe he'd cuffed Raku to. The sound of Bixler and Inuyasha remonstrating with his mother faded as he strode deliberately down the porch steps through the snow and past Bixler's SUV. Unless Inuyasha had moved it, the tool shed was just off the barn.

The snow was falling harder now, making it difficult to see. It didn't matter. He could've walked the path from house to barn blindfolded.

The shed was unlocked. So much for Inuyasha's security measures. Opening the door, Sesshoumaru stepped inside, the light from the outside enough to show him that his brother kept the basic setup intact. To his right was the electric buzz saw set into its own table. The main workbench still stood against the far wall, and the tools hung in plain sight and within easy reach on hooks set into the wall.

A wrench was out of place, the empty space where it should have been sticking out like a gaping hole of a lost tooth in a mouth full of teeth.

The missing wrench was lying on the worktable at an angle. Sesshoumaru picked it up and saw that it was dented and scratched. Someone had been banging it up. Frowning, he set the wrench back in its place and set about looking for something to use on the bathtub pipe.

No blowtorch.

There was a sledgehammer, but in the close quarters between the tub and the bathroom wall, swinging it would be difficult.

The easiest solution was to simply take the keys back from Kagura. While the thought of getting his hands on her wasn't exactly unpleasant, it also wasn't his style to rip clothes off of women to get what he wanted, even if it was just some keys.

She infuriated him. Fiery, opinionated, interfering. She was always doing the unexpected, refusing to be intimidated by him, challenging him and making him feel…more than he'd felt in a long time.

Shoulders hunched against the cold, Sesshoumaru leaned against the shed door and watched the snow fall.


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

He'd be back.

From what Bixler and the weather reports were saying, the roads were quickly becoming impassible. There was nowhere for Sesshoumaru to go but back to his family, and back to her.

Kagura's eyes narrowed. Where had that thought come from?

Staring out the window over the sink, Kagura looked up at the darkening skies. The snow was really coming down. When was that stubborn man coming inside? More importantly, why did she care?

He showed up after the brunch dishes were washed, dried, and Kagome's Christmas ham was baking in the oven along with a sinfully fattening potato dish with lots of cheese and fried cornflakes sprinkled on the top.

Kagura looked up from the tomatoes she was slicing for the salad as he swept through the hall and up the stairs. Setting down the knife, she followed.

He was in the bathroom with Raku when she stormed through the doorway of his room. Stopping short, she stared around, waiting for Sesshoumaru to come out, not wanting to see any more of Raku than she already had.

The room was like him, cool, with a classic Spartan simplicity. The walls were blue with white crown molding. The bed's coverlet was plain navy blue. A comfortable chair upholstered in blue and green plaid was set by a stone fireplace. An old fashioned wooden wardrobe completed the furniture, and the only artwork was a painting of a lone cowboy on a horse. The figure could only be seen from the back. He was on the edge of a plateau with snowcapped mountains rising majestically in the background. It was beautiful, but lonely, and it reminded her of Sesshoumaru.

Kagura turned from it when Sesshoumaru exited the bathroom carrying an empty mug. He stopped on seeing her, shutting the door behind him on Raku's catcalls, and waited without expression for Kagura to speak.

When in doubt, attack.

"Christmas dinner will be ready soon. You going to sulk up here, or are you coming?"

His eyes got chillier.

"I do not sulk," he said, and walked past her.

Suppressing a smile, she followed.

Dinner was a repeat of the last, only with Bixler and his wife helping Kagome and Kagura carry the conversation. Sesshoumaru was nearly as silent as Kanna, and Inuyasha spent his time dividing anxious glances between his brother and his mother.

After dinner they all ended up in the living room for the opening of the presents. Kagura watched, fascinated. Her parents divorced when she was a baby, and her father was almost never around. After he and her mother died, her father of alcoholism and her mother in a car accident, Christmas was just another day on the calendar. She began taking her two week vacation time at the end of December so she could avoid the holiday cheer.

Watching the expressions on their faces as they opened their gifts to one another made her feel a sharp regret that she'd never had a real family Christmas. As she smiled and applauded, there was a sense of being on the outside looking in, despite the fact that she was inside the room.

Sitting on the couch, next to Sesshoumaru, with Kanna on the floor at her feet, she supposed to someone looking through the window that they resembled a family unit with a mother, father, and child. She found herself looking out towards the window, which is why she didn't notice Kagome picking her way through crumpled bits of wrapping paper to stand in front of her.

She felt Sesshoumaru's cool fingers touch her hand and jerked around to find the girl standing in front of her holding out a small bundle wrapped in red colored saran wrap and tied with a simple ribbon.

"This is for you, Kagura."

Blinking, she held out her hand and let Kagome place the bundle in her palm. It opened with a quick tug on the ribbon's end and Kagura saw that Kagome had given her a red scrunchie, one of those gathered fabric rubber bands used to tie up hair in pony tails.

"You didn't have to get me anything, you know," she told her.

Kagome shrugged. "It's not much, but it matches the sweater, and I wanted to give you something to remember us by."

"I don't think I'll be forgetting this Christmas any time soon," Kagura assured her. Getting kidnapped wasn't something she was likely to forget.

Kagome picked up on the dark humor in her tone and smiled uncertainly. Kagura suddenly felt bad about making the girl uncomfortable. Forcing her voice into a serious tone, she thanked her properly.

"Thank you, Kagome. It's nice."

"You're welcome. This one's for you, Sesshoumaru."

Kagura didn't bother to hide the laughter in her eyes when he pulled open his saran wrapped packet of oreos.

Kagome blushed. "I saw you eat two of them last night so I figured you might like some more."

Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow, causing the girl to hurriedly grab her last gift, thrust it at Kanna, and retreat to Inuyasha's side.

The little girl stared down at the oddly shaped flat packet in her lap.

"Open it," Sesshoumaru ordered her.

Kagura held her breath, wondering if Kanna would obey.

The child slowly pushed the saran wrap off the object and held up a small hand mirror, the type you'd get at a drugstore and use to view the back of your head while styling your hair. It was a weird gift for a kid, but Kagura supposed Kagome didn't have much to choose from. It's not like she could take off shopping in a snowstorm just because uninvited guests showed up for Christmas.

Kanna appeared fascinated with the mirror, moving her head slowly this way and that, angling it around to see her face from all sides. Turning on her knees to face the couch where Sesshoumaru and Kagura sat, she continued to move the mirror around, then stopped.

Looking over the girl's head, Kagura realized she was using the mirror to see directly behind her. On the loveseat by the tree, Mr. and Mrs. Bixler sat, holding hands and watching as Inuyasha held a sprig of mistletoe over Kagome's head and puckered up, clowning around. Kagome gave a short huff of exasperation, then leaned her head back to allow Inuyasha to plant a quick kiss on her lips.

Kanna giggled.

The room went quiet as they all stared at the girl.

Kagura felt her hand reaching out for Sesshoumaru's, clasping his long, elegant fingers in hers, and felt an answering pressure as he allowed it.

Kanna giggled again then went still, noticing that all eyes were on her. Quietly, she set the mirror on the floor and her face went blank again.

For a second, Kanna was like a normal little girl. For one moment, Kagura could almost believe in Christmas miracles; then the moment was gone as if it had never happened. Only the feel of Sesshoumaru's hand in hers remained to prove something out of the ordinary had happened.

o-o-o

When the woman took his hand he allowed it from sheer surprise. The fact that the child giggled wasn't nearly as shocking to him as the feel of Kagura's spontaneous gesture. Sesshoumaru couldn't remember the last time a woman tried to hold his hand. Scratch his eyes out maybe, but hold his hand? Never.

It was an odd experience, but not unpleasant.

Then his mother had to go and ruin it.

Exclaiming in surprise, she jumped up and ran to Kanna, gathering the little girl in her arms and begging her to laugh again.

Of course, Kanna did no such thing. She lay limp and unresponsive in his mother's arms until Bixler came to gently pull his wife away. There were tears in the woman's eyes.

Sesshoumaru felt his lip curl and he glanced away from her.

The last time his mother touched him it was to thrust herself away from his embrace so she could run away. She hadn't shed any tears over that, yet now she cried over a stranger?

Inuyasha and Kagome stared, embarrassed he supposed, at the woman's unseemly display of emotion. Kagura found it necessary to meddle. He was beginning to think it was her goal in life to interfere.

"So Kagome, you planning on having a bunch of kids?" she asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"What? Oh, er, I don't know."

His brother's fiancée blushed a lot, even over innocuous questions.

"Maybe you've got one on the way already since you've been playing house with Inuyasha?" Kagura pulled her hand off Sesshoumaru's to place her hands on her knees and lean forward, as if avidly waiting for a reply. "Come on, Kagome, spill it!"

The girl blushed harder. "It's not like that!" she protested. "I'm only staying with Inuyasha over Christmas break because a water pipe ruptured in my apartment, and I needed somewhere to go while they fixed it since my family is in Japan for Christmas."

Sesshoumaru remembered the wrench in the toolshed.

Sesshoumaru fixed his eye on his little brother. As soon as Inuyasha felt the look he plastered that patently false innocent look on his face that he used whenever trying to put one over on people.

It was a very good thing that Inuyasha had not decided to pursue a career in acting. His innocent act stunk. Still, he had to give his kid brother some credit for figuring out a way to get his girlfriend to his home for the holidays. But breaking open a pipe? Trust Inuyasha to choose the most destructively flamboyant method.

The innocent look faded, and Inuyasha flashed a sheepish grin at his brother. It reminded Sesshoumaru of the way things used to be between them. He relaxed his look as he always had in the past when Inuyasha fessed up, then looked away. It was too easy to fall into the patterns of the past. He'd have to watch himself.

"Well I want lots of kids," Inuyasha broke in stoutly. "Enough for a baseball team."

Kagome smacked him lightly and they began arguing good-naturedly about the proper number of children to have.

o-o-o

The 'storage room' Inuyasha dismissed so readily turned out to be a guest suite he'd built for his mother and her husband's visits to the ranch. Sesshoumaru watched impassively as Bixler escorted her to their bedroom. It was early, but felt later since the sky was darker than usual due to the snowstorm.

The others stayed up to watch Christmas specials on TV.

Sesshoumaru ignored the TV and contented himself with watching them.

Inuyasha and Kagome bickered like children, yet whenever an especially touching moment occurred in the program they were watching, she reached for him instinctively. Inuyasha's face took on a pleased, content demeanor whenever that happened. Fascinating. The puppy was still just as brash and abrasive as ever, but the girl seemed to see through his brother's façade.

Sesshoumaru found it difficult to be interested in his brother's fiancée. She was bland. He saw that she was a kind-hearted person, the type that went through life trying to do their best and help others. It was those types who usually ended up being the victims of senseless crimes. He had little use for weak women who always needed to be protected. They just got in the way.

Kagura, on the other hand, would resent the hell out of anyone trying to protect her. Her face was watchful, guarded. She maintained a politely civil expression most of the time, but when her dark, throaty laughter broke through it was like breaking through a smooth pastry shell to unexpectedly find rich chocolate inside. The side of her that lay hidden was far more intriguing to him than Kagome's open friendliness. Kagura kept her thoughts to herself, showing only what she wanted others to see.

Kanna was a tabula rasa, a blank slate. She sat staring at the TV screen, but who knew what she was really seeing? Without her father in the room to give her orders she simply drifted to a spot and waited. The only sign of life or self-direction came when she'd lift the hand mirror and use it to gaze around the room.

He caught her gaze in the mirror. He held it, refusing to look away, to give in to the unnerving tingling sensation gnawing at the fringes of his mind. Something about her bothered him. She was so like his brother in hair and eye color, yet so different in personality. She was like a changeling, a fairy child substituted for a human one. Her eyes stared at him, transfixed for an instant, then she tilted the mirror and moved her head to look at Kagura, sitting next to her on the couch.

The dark haired woman noticed, and placed her hand on Kanna's hair, brushing it over the child's shoulder, smiling at her in the mirror. Kanna stared back blankly, then set the mirror down on her lap again and turned her eyes back to the TV.

Kagura's hand froze on Kanna's shoulder, then she gave a slight shrug and removed it, glancing over at Sesshoumaru with a rueful quirk of her eyebrow.

When the last show was over, Kagome muted the TV, pushed Inuyasha out of the big leather chair they were sharing and pronounced herself ready for bed. A quick elbow in his ribs cut short his brother's leering comment about joining her, and he had the grace to mutter an apology when she stared pointedly at Kanna.

Kagura took the child's hand and followed Kagome upstairs, leaving Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru alone.

There was a short, stilted silence as they faced each other across the living room, the changing pictures of the TV ads flickering across the muted screen to their right.

"So. You going to hang around for a while?" Inuyasha asked cautiously.

"We'll leave when the storm lets up."

"Oh." Inuyasha couldn't quite hide the flash of disappointment in his eyes. To cover it, he immediately crossed his arms and glared.

"I could use the help around here, you know. It hasn't been easy getting stuff done without you."

Sesshoumaru could readily imagine that. He wondered how many hired hands quit in disgust over his brother's managerial techniques the first week.

"Especially at vaccination time." His brother gestured out the window in the general direction of the barns. "Stupid llama bit me last time!"

They used to work together, in pairs, to catch and vaccinate the young beasts. Sesshoumaru usually paired older and younger ranch hands, and continued that trend by pairing himself with Inuyasha during vaccination season. It was the one time they worked well together. When Inuyasha's full attention was on a task, he could be surprisingly efficient, and amenable to instruction. It was in all the other aspects of life that his little brother insisted on doing things his own way.

"I'm sure you survived," Sesshoumaru told him. "I'm sure you had…help."

He looked pointedly over Inuyasha's shoulder at the hall that led to their mother's room.

Inuyasha reddened. "So what if I asked mom for help? You weren't around anymore, and she…"

Sesshoumaru turned his back and headed for the stairs.

"Hey, where are you going? We're not through yet," Inuyasha's voice called behind him.

"Yes, we are."

The sound of his brother's growl of frustration followed Sesshoumaru up the stairs. Inuyasha's wants and needs were no longer his concern. He'd chosen to side with their mother. As soon as the roads were useable, Sesshoumaru would be on his way, even if he had to rip the bathtub plumbing out of the wall to extricate Raku, and hotwire his truck to get it started.

Stripping Kagura naked to get his keys back wasn't an option.

Pity.

Sesshoumaru's step faltered as he passed the study door, an image of what the woman would look like naked flashing through his brain. Resisting the urge to shake his head to get it out, he clamped down on his thoughts and set his mouth into a grim line. He wanted her. Badly. It was for that very reason that he wouldn't act on his impulse.

Wheeling around, he stepped back to the study door and knocked. He could handle being around Kagura. She wasn't irresistible, and he refused to be the sort of man who took what he wanted regardless of the consequences.

"Yes?" Kagura opened the door a crack.

Sesshoumaru found himself vaguely disappointed that she wasn't dressed for bed.

"I need the handcuff keys."

She narrowed her eyes at him.

"Why? Raku already ate. You took him food after dinner."

He had indeed, and Raku had cleaned his plate, then tried to throw it at Sesshoumaru, who'd caught it and brought it downstairs for Kagome to wash.

"Bathroom." Sesshoumaru informed her succinctly.

"Oh," Kagura stepped out of the room and shut the door behind her. "I'll go."

Sesshoumaru's first reaction was to object, to order the woman back inside and away from Raku, but seeing the determination on her face, he merely moved back to let her pass. This wasn't about thwarting him, it was about facing her fears. If that's what she wanted, then he'd let her.

He regretted his decision the instant they opened the bathroom door and a vile grin spread over Raku's face. The smile was at odds with the hard, vengeful look in the man's eyes as he sat on the bathroom rug, hands in the cuffs looped around the bathroom pipe at the edge of the tub.

"Miss me, sugar?" he asked Kagura suggestively.

She grimaced but didn't answer.

Sesshoumaru raised his eyebrows, silently offering to take the keys and deal with Raku himself.

She shook her head. "How do you do this?"

"Uncuff one hand, and link the opened end to the pipe," he told her.

Drawing his weapon, he went to stand over by the sink and pointed the barrel of the gun at Raku's head, kicking the man's legs out of Kagura's way as he went, so she'd have a place to kneel.

Taking her place on the floor, Kagura did as Sesshoumaru ordered.

Raku's lips were moving. He was whispering things to Kagura, things Sesshoumaru couldn't hear. Things that caused the woman to stiffen her back and clench her jaw.

The cuffs clanked against the metal pipe. Kagura got to her feet and stalked past him without a word. Raku rose to a crouch and placed his free hand on his zipper. Sesshoumaru kicked the bathroom door shut and kept it closed as the man finished his business.

When Raku got the zipper back up, Sesshoumaru dove forward and kicked the man's legs out from under him. He straddled the toilet bowl and shoved the gun into Raku's face so hard that it dented his cheek.

"One more word to her, and I blow your brains out," he promised.

Raku sneered up at him, but kept his mouth shut. Sesshoumaru pulled back a little, and called her name.

"Kagura."

At the sound of his voice, she came into the bathroom, head held high. She walked over to Raku without hesitation and knelt.

Sesshoumaru dug his gun a little further into Raku's cheek, and the man obediently lifted his free hand towards the bathtub. It took only a few seconds for Kagura to unlock one end of the cuffs, thread them back around the pipe, and lock the metal ring around Raku's wrist.

He waited until she'd backed far enough from Raku so the man couldn't kick her, then removed his gun and stepped after her, keeping his eye on the creep until he could close the bathroom door behind him as he exited.

In his bedroom again, he holstered the gun and turned to Kagura. She was pale, but composed.

"You could avoid this by giving me the keys," he told her.

She grinned, the smile playing well on her mouth, but not in her eyes. Her eyes were tired, cynical.

"Where's the fun in that?"

He looked her over. The color was coming back to her face. Her posture was relaxed, with just a hint of tenseness in the hand grasping the keys to betray how much effort it was taking her to pretend she was alright.

He tired of the game, the pretense, and of watching her keep up her brave little façade.

"Go to bed, Kagura."

"I just might do that," she said, and left the room, hips swaying slightly as she affected a nonchalant gait.

"Sleep well," he whispered to the door after she'd closed it.

He doubted his well wishing would do any good. He could only imagine the things Raku had whispered to her. He just hoped her nightmares were quiet ones. Explaining to the household why the woman woke the house with her screaming night horrors was not his idea of fun. With a last look at the door, Sesshoumaru turned and headed for his own bed.

**A/N: If anyone wants the potato dish recipe, just ask and I'll be glad to send it to you in a PM.**


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN

The night was quiet, no screaming. Sesshoumaru waited until he heard stirring from the study before making his way downstairs to the kitchen. Kagura survived the night without crying out. He'd know when she appeared by the dark circles under her eyes if she'd done so by simply not allowing herself to sleep or if she'd been fortunate in her dreams.

When the woman made it downstairs, Kanna in hand, she was wearing the same jeans she'd worn the day before, and was sporting the white turtleneck Kagome had worn when they first arrived. Her hair was gathered up off her neck with the red fabric tie Kagome had given her the night before. Her eyes were unclouded, her skin clear. She was tougher than Sesshoumaru credited.

Breakfast was a loud, boisterous time. Kagura was exuberant, seemingly unaffected by her run-in with Raku. However, there was a look in her eye at times, a watchfulness that said part of her was just acting a role. Inuyasha was too oblivious to notice and they traded outrageous remarks with each other that had Kagome squeaking her boyfriend's name in protest and the Bixlers laughing helplessly.

Bixler was the quiet one in the relationship. He kept his hand on his wife's arm or shoulders and paid attention to her contributions to the conversation. Sesshoumaru saw him squeeze her arm gently whenever she'd glance Sesshoumaru's way. Wisely, she didn't direct any of her remarks at him. The table was large and full enough that the conversation ran along fine without any contribution on his part.

After breakfast the Bixlers retreated to their room, claiming the need to check email. Kagome, Kagura, and Kanna bundled up and went out for a walk after Kagura unleashed Raku long enough to use the facilities, and Sesshoumaru did his duty as prison warden while the man inhaled the leftovers from breakfast.

Needing some time alone, Sesshoumaru slipped out the front door and climbed the hill at the back of the ranch house.

Snow covered the land. Flakes continued to fall gently to the ground. There were less of them now. The storm was nearly past. It was quiet. Not one breath of wind touched the trees. They'd grown since his time.

He stayed there a while, enjoying the stillness. Years from now, when he and Inuyasha were both dead, the land would remain. He missed it, fiercely, the sense of belonging he'd had when he lived on the ranch, the sense of being a part of a greater whole.

He heard feminine laughter and voices, and looked downhill to see Kagome and Kagura walking by the barn, Kanna trudging ahead of them along the path towards the house. Kagura stopped by the toolshed to adjust her borrowed snowboots, an old pair of Inuyasha's by the looks of them. Her hand slipped on the slick wood siding and she tottered. Kagome reached out to help her and they both fell in the snow, laughing. Kanna walked on, seeming not to notice.

It took the women a while to get back to their feet and help each other brush the snow off their jackets and hats. Neither one appeared hurt.

Sesshoumaru blew warm air on his hands and descended. Gloves got in the way of trigger fingers, so he didn't wear them. Half running half walking down the steep incline, he got to the bottom of the hill and entered the house through the back door of the kitchen. Rounding the kitchen counter, he made it through the door into the hall when all hell broke loose.

Raku entered the living room from the corridor leading to the guest suite. He had a knife to Sesshoumaru's mother's throat as he sidled along, back to the wall behind him, and came into the living area. Bixler and Inuyasha followed warily.

"Please, don't hurt her," Bixler begged, anguish contorting his expression. "I have money, I'll give you whatever you want, just don't hurt her." His hands were open, his body language pleading. Sesshoumaru could've told him not to bother. Men like Raku were born without mercy. Bixler didn't know that.

The man glanced wildly around the room, locking eyes with Sesshoumaru who merely stared back impassively. His step-father wilted a little and looked to Inuyasha instead. Sesshoumaru waited. Inuyasha didn't disappoint him.

"If you hurt my mom, I'll kill you!" his brother shouted. Unlike Bixler, his hands were fisted, and the tendons in his neck were taut with rage.

Raku ignored both of them, and turned his body so Bixler's wife was a human shield, covering his torso and legs. Sesshoumaru would not be able to shoot Raku without hitting his mother.

"So this is your mom, eh?" Raku sneered. "Nice body for an old girl."

He ran his free hand down her side, causing her to close her eyes and whimper.

Bixler made an incoherent sound of frustrated rage mixed with fear.

Raku tilted the knife against her jawline, forcing her chin up. "So how do you want her to die?" he asked Sesshoumaru. "Quick or slow? Horizontal cut, or maybe some verticals?"

His mother was panting in fear with her eyes screwed shut, face tight. She'd looked a little like that the day she'd rushed out of the lawyer's office.

"I don't care," Sesshoumaru said. He turned his back and began walking away towards the stairs.

Hostages always complicated things. The only way to negate the effect a hostage had on a situation was to sacrifice the hostage. Since he couldn't very well shoot through his mother to get to Raku with Inuyasha and Bixler there as witnesses, his only other option was to place doubt in Raku's mind that taking a hostage was an effective strategy.

Raku gave an audible gasp, or was it Bixler? Sesshoumaru didn't care much either way, but it was Raku who protested first.

"What do you mean you don't care? She's your mother!"

He sounded oddly indignant for a criminal. He also sounded closer, and from the scraping and fumbling noises going on behind him, Sesshoumaru realized Raku was following him, pushing his human shield ahead of him as he went.

Making it to the stairs, Sesshoumaru put his foot on the first step.

At that moment the front door opened and Kagura and Kagome came inside, smiles fading as they took in the scene.

Raku was fast, Sesshoumaru had to give him that. In the second or two it took Sesshoumaru to turn around and step off the stair, Raku had shoved his mother to the floor and grabbed Kagura, substituting her as his hostage.

"If you don't care about your mother, then how about her?"

Fury coursed through him, surprising him even as it clouded his mind for a moment. With an effort, Sesshoumaru calmed himself, but knew his eyes were revealing his hatred to the man.

Raku cut into Kagura's neck a little, causing a fine red line to appear across the white skin. She winced, but remained completely still, eyes open, looking directly at Sesshoumaru. That was Kagura, facing life head on without apology or regret.

"Give me the gun."

Sesshoumaru knew that was coming. Moving slowly, he raised his hand and pulled his weapon out of its holster by the butt.

"Drop it," ordered Raku tersely.

Sesshoumaru obeyed, bending slightly to set it on the floor.

"Now kick it over here."

Placing his boot tip against the butt, Sesshoumaru shoved the gun across the wood floor towards his enemy, hatred running through him like an electrical wire, sharp and painful.

As he rose back to his full height, he took inventory of the situation, forcing himself to take note of anything that could help.

Bixler was on the floor with his wife, huddled protectively at her side and beginning to ask if she was OK. Kagome was shrinking back in the doorway, white faced and eyes wide with panic. Kanna was nowhere in sight. Sesshoumaru didn't know how the little girl had stolen the handcuff keys from Kagura, but the logical place for her was upstairs. She was quite probably still in the bathroom where she'd freed her father.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sesshoumaru saw Inuyasha grab the fireplace poker and begin yelling insults at Raku. He was so noisy that Raku actually glanced over at him. That was when Sesshoumaru made his move.

When he'd bent to set the knife on the floor, he'd pulled his throwing knife out of his boot and palmed it. The moment Raku looked over at Inuyasha, Sesshoumaru sent the cunning little carbonized steel dagger flying into Raku's arm. From the stairs the angle was much better for projectile fighting, and the knife buried itself deep into Raku's bicep. The fool had wrapped his free arm across Kagura's chest, presenting an easy target.

It crossed Sesshoumaru's mind, fleetingly, that he'd known Inuyasha would provide a welcome distraction because he knew his brother so well. Inuyasha could no more keep quiet during a confrontation than he could fly. Some knowledge was ingrained.

Kagura was the wild card, but she didn't disappoint.

The moment Raku grunted in pain, she became boneless, slipping down his body and under his arms, which had loosened in surprise. Landing on the floor in a crouch, she lunged away and grabbed Kagome, pulling her back away from the hall and into the doorway of the utility room to Sesshoumaru's right. Raku's two closest choices for hostages were now barred to him.

Raku howled and tried to follow, but Inuyasha was there, charging forward and swinging the poker. Sesshoumaru wisely stepped back out of the way. When Inuyasha was enraged he resembled a bull in a china shop, and Sesshoumaru preferred not to become broken crockery.

The poker hit Raku's arm, dislodging the knife embedded in it. Sesshoumaru felt his eyebrows rise. His little brother was showing a modicum of sense in his plan of attack, going for Raku's weakest flank.

The man howled and stumbled, dropping his own knife to the floor. He flattened himself to the wood flooring to avoid Inuyasha's next swing and reached out, hooking the boy's heel with his hand. One yank, and Inuyasha was down on his back, cursing.

Unfortunately, Raku noticed Sesshoumaru's gun lying on the floor in front of his face and grabbed it as he pulled his arm back from tripping Inuyasha. Grimacing, he rolled to a seated position and backed up by sliding his rear end across the floor so his back was in the front doorway.

Sesshoumaru was pleased to note that Raku's wounded arm hung useless at his side and blood was seeping from the wound. He was less pleased to realize that Raku's eyes were no longer coldly calculating, but seething, and Raku's gun was pointed directly at him.

Inuyasha was staring at him as well. Sesshoumaru had one last card up his sleeve, but it depended on his brother remembering.

Llamas were skittish beasts. In order to sneak up on them, Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha had developed a set of small hand signals to communicate their next move in trapping the animals in order to vaccinate them. Shifting his hip forward to conceal his hand from Raku, Sesshoumaru pointed two fingers at the floor and curled them before relaxing his hand. If Inuyasha saw and understood then even if Sesshoumaru died, he'd still get Raku in the end.

"You!" Raku snarled. "This is all your fault. I'll make you pay." He raised the gun an inch higher.

'How disturbingly unoriginal' Sesshoumaru thought as he braced himself. At this range Raku wasn't likely to miss, and there wasn't much Sesshoumaru could do about it but move as Raku fired and hope he didn't hit anything vital. While Raku's attention was focused on him, Inuyasha could make his move.

The gun barked once, just as a shape exploded from the side.

Sesshoumaru looked down in front of him to see his mother's crumpled form between him and Raku. She'd thrown herself in front of the gun, taking the bullet meant for him.

A second later, Inuyasha swung his poker, hitting Raku from the side. The poker landed with a crunch against the man's temple, and he dropped.

Sesshoumaru didn't need to check Raku's pulse to know the man was dead. Only death could cause him to release Sesshoumaru's gun and lie like a pile of dirty rags on the floor.

His mother, on the other hand, was writhing and groaning. Bixler was at her side in a heartbeat, cradling her upper body against his chest and pressing against the widening red stain on her shoulder. He was crooning nonsense words, endearments, at his wife.

Inuyasha dropped the poker and fell to his knees at her side.

"Mom? Mom! You're going to be OK, you hear me?"

Trust his brother to try to harangue someone back to health.

Kagome tore away from Kagura's side and ran past. "I'll call 911!"

Ever practical, Kagura disappeared through the door of the utility room and returned with one of the clean towels stacked on the laundry machine. Bixler accepted it with thanks and pressed it to the wound.

Sesshoumaru stood in his place by the stairs and watched. The shoulder wound was high, directly under the collarbone. His mother was breathing fine, so the lung hadn't been hit. Unless she went into shock, she'd survive. He walked slowly over to stand by his brother. Her eyes followed him, her expression dark with pain.

"Why?"

His question was directed at his mother, but everyone except Kagome, who was yelling hysterically into the kitchen phone, turned to look at him. He ignored them, keeping his attention on his mother.

Her eyes were blue. He didn't remember them being that vibrant a shade and supposed she wore color enhancing contact lenses. Pain was making her cheeks appear drawn, and her blonde bob of a haircut was an unruly mess. Still she managed to look beautiful.

"Because you're my son," she told him hoarsely. "And that's what mothers do."

Sesshoumaru looked away. He walked away from the group on the floor and left through the open front door.

o-o-o

Kagura knew that she'd never met anyone as stubborn as Sesshoumaru in her whole life. His mother threw herself in front of a bullet for him, and he walked away.

Before he took that first step, she thought she saw a gleam of doubt in his eyes.

Never one to let well enough alone, she followed him out the door.

He hadn't gone very far. He was at the edge of the porch when she caught up with him.

"Hey, where are you going?"

She hadn't meant for her words to come out so belligerently, but she stood by them, coming to a halt at the top of the porch steps and grabbing his arm to top him.

Sesshoumaru looked at her, not her hand on his arm as if he wanted it off of him, but right in her face. It wasn't much, but it was a start. It showed he was taking her seriously.

"To meet the ambulance," he said simply.

Anger deflated, Kagura remembered the trouble she'd had finding the ranch house's driveway. There was only a small mailbox by the opening in the trees to show where the driveway began.

She lifted her chin. "Then I'm coming too."

"Suit yourself."

Kagura wasn't sure if she was imagining it or not, but it sounded like there was a tiny note of amusement in his voice. It was truly a day for miracles.

Moving her hand around his arm, she linked elbows with him, scarcely daring to breathe as she waited to see how he'd react.

Sesshoumaru merely started down the steps, allowing her arm to remain linked to his when they reached the bottom and made their way down the driveway Inuyasha had shoveled earlier that morning.

They must've looked like an ice skating couple in one of those Victorian style greeting cards, but Kagura found that she didn't care. There was something almost stately about walking on a man's arm, and she was glad of the support for the driveway was slippery. As they came to the trees, Kagura caught a glimpse of the road beyond them and saw that it had been snowplowed already. The ambulance would get through. It also meant that they could've left any time that morning, yet Sesshoumaru chose to remain at the ranch. Was it because she still had his car keys?

She took a deep breath and felt their solid, metallic presence in her bra. The handcuff keys she'd kept in her pocket. Kanna must have lifted them during the walk, then ran on ahead to free her father. Raku wouldn't have harmed Kanna; she was far too useful a tool to him. The child was a survivor. Damaged, but enduring. Kagura saw a bit of herself in the kid.

Dismissing Kanna from her thoughts, she centered her attention on the man walking next to her.

"So, what'll you do now that your bounty is dead?" she asked, meaning to taunt but sounding curious instead.

"The reward has a dead or alive clause to it."

She snuck a glance at his face. Sesshoumaru was never what you'd call animated, but there was a relaxed, thoughtful aspect to his expression that she'd never seen before.

"That's lucky."

"Yes."

They walked on in silence to the end of the driveway and stood by the mailbox.

"She'll be alright," Kagura predicted.

"I know."

She stepped around to stare in his face. "How do you feel about that?"

The question hung in the air between them. The silence drew on as Sesshoumaru stared down into her searching eyes. He let her see the confusion inside. Shutters were coming down, and they were coming down for her.

"Content," he said at last.

Content.

And with that one word she had to be content too, for she knew Sesshoumaru wouldn't say anything more.

She smiled. It was enough.

o-o-o

The next day Kagura and Sesshoumaru took Kanna for a walk up the hill. She'd been told her father was dead, but hadn't reacted with either sadness or joy. Her hand was limp in Kagura's grip as they made their way through the snow.

The police finished taking all their statements the night before, the questioning expedited by a friend of Sesshoumaru's in the local police department. Raku's body was in the morgue, and Bixler took his wife home from the hospital to the tender care of a housekeeper and maidservant. He declared he was taking a week off of work as well to make sure she recuperated properly.

Kagome became clingy and sentimental towards Inuyasha, his brush with danger making her hyper aware of the fragility of life and the ease with which loved ones could be lost. She agreed to stay on at the ranch for the last week of her Christmas break, even after her plumbing was fixed. Kagura wondered how long it would take for Inuyasha to do something to get them bickering again.

The trio stopped at the top of the hill and turned their backs to the ranch house. Kagura watched Sesshoumaru's eyes sweep across the landscape. It wasn't a tactical sweep. It wasn't the way he looked around when entering different surroundings like a hospital or police station, searching out possible threats. It was different, appreciative. He loved the place.

Kanna lifted her free hand and latched on to Sesshoumaru's, hanging still at his side. Kagura saw his jaw tighten with surprise, then relax. The three of them stood quietly, looking out over the ranch.

"So what now?" Kagura asked softly, speaking over the child's head. "Do you have to show up in person to collect your reward, or will you stay here for a while?"

Inuyasha, with Kagome's stout support, had invited Sesshoumaru to stay. He insisted that half of the ranch belonged to his brother and said that from now on Sesshoumaru had better be around to check on his investment or Inuyasha would run it into the ground just out of spite. Kagome made a face at that pronouncement, but begged her future brother in law to consider the ranch his home whenever he wanted it.

"I will stay, for a while," Sesshoumaru's voice came grudgingly.

His mother's recuperation may or may not have factored into his decision. Kagura suspected that part of the reason he was staying was because of her, but knew he'd never speak of it. She knew too when to let things stay unspoken.

"It's kind of nice out here," she said, scanning the landscape.

It was true. The land dipped in a series of meadows past the ranch buildings. In the far distance a ridge cropped up like a protective wall, sheltering the meadowlands. Beyond it lay mountains, dark purple shadows beneath snow tipped summits.

"It grows on you," she pronounced.

Sesshumaru hummed a single note of agreement.

It was true. She'd always lived in towns or cities, but it wasn't until coming to the ranch that she'd learned to appreciate silence. She'd have to get used to silence if she wanted to be with Sesshoumaru, and she did want that. Once Kagura made her mind up, she went for it.

"Want some company?" she asked airily.

Kanna squeezed her hand. Kagura looked down at her in surprise, but Kanna's face was set towards the meadows, and she refused to return Kagura's gaze. Glancing over, she saw that Sesshoumaru was looking down at the top of Kanna's head as well. The child must've squeezed his hand too.

He looked over at her, and Kagura promptly forgot all about Kanna.

"Yes," he said.

When had she ever thought Sesshoumaru's face was unexpressive? The raw hunger and longing she saw there made his look of appreciation over his ranch pale by comparison. Her heart clenched. She'd made the right decision. Besides, she was getting tired of insurance claims investigations. Assisting a bounty hunter was way more exciting. For all that Sesshoumaru loved his ranch and would always come back to it, hunting was in his blood now. They would hunt together.

"Good," Kagura said, and smiled.

The End.

**A/N: That's it, end of story. Leave a review and let me know if you liked or disliked it. I thought the original ending was a bit abrupt so I tacked on the scene on the hill, but I'm not sure if it worked.**


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